The Sound Of Crying

by Nigel Cooper

  ‘Lunch in the park?’

  ‘Yeah, every day at twelve noon he takes a packed lunch and a flask or something or another and walks around to Jesus Green, you can set your watch by it.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Well, every day since we’ve been watching him.’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ said Rhodes. He Googled Jesus Green Cambridge and clicked the Maps button, then he clicked the Satellite view and zoomed in to fill his computer screen with the entire park. ‘Where abouts?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Where abouts does he sit in the park, I mean is it a different place each day?’

  ‘No, same place, on a bench.’

  ‘I’m looking at a map of the park, where’s is the bench located?’

  ‘Give me a second,’ said Dempsey. Rhodes opened Google Earth while he waited as it would give him a much clearer view of the park and he could zoom in close to get something that resembled a low flying helicopter pilot’s point of view. He searched for ‘Jesus Green Cambridge’ and as he zoomed in closer the angle tilted, giving him the angle of view he needed. The more he zoomed in, the more acute the angle became, before eventually transitioning into Street View mode.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rhodes.

  ‘The south corner, where Park Parade meets Lower Park Street. There are three trees in a row, the bench sits just in front of them.’

  Rhodes hit the ‘Exit Street View’ button and zoomed into the corner that DC Dempsey had just mentioned. He zoomed in closer, pilot coming in to land style, until it turned back to ‘Street View’. There it was, just inside the entrance, between three bins and some trees, a wooden park bench.

  ‘Can I help you with anything else?’ said Dempsey, still waiting on his mobile.

  ‘No, but keep me up to date with his lunch trips to the park. I want to know if he continues to go there every day at the same time or if there’s any days he doesn’t.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Rhodes went back to Google and dragged the little yellow ‘Browse Street View’ person icon onto the corner of Park Parade and Lower Park Street. He panned the image around and then clicked forward a couple of times until he was right at the entrance to the park. He could see the bench on the left and a path going straight through the middle of the park. He panned all around and saw small terraced houses behind and to the right and a brook traveling up along the east edge of the park. At the other end of the footpath through the park there were a couple of buildings, a small one, which was actually in the park in amongst a cluster of trees, and a larger one beyond that. Rhodes clicked on the footpath and, as luck would have it, those nice people at Google had actually sent some sort of photo vehicle through the park itself, which allowed Rhodes to click his way, fifty meters or so at a time, though the park getting a pedestrian’s point of view. The smaller building amongst the trees looked like public toilets perhaps, he couldn’t be sure, but it was the larger, taller, building beyond this that interested Rhodes. He continued to click his way through the park until he got to a bridge over a river, the river Cam he presumed. This was brilliant, he couldn’t believe it when he discovered that he could actually click his way across the bridge and actually look down into the river. When he was half way across he could clearly see that the building was about four stories high, including the ground floor. He crossed the bridge, virtually, and viewed the building across the road on the corner of Chesterton Road and Carlyle Road, it was a Job Centre and it looked like it had a flat roof and even a permanent metal construction ladder that led up onto the upper-most part.

  Back in Google Earth Rhodes got back to low flying aircraft mode and zoomed across the park, across the river towards the Job Centre building and zoomed in for a closer look. Yes, it was definitely a flat roof and from what he could ascertain it was the tallest building in the area. He dragged the little ‘North East South West’ dial around to the south position to get a reverse point of view from the rooftop of the Job Centre, looking back across the park towards the bench in the far south corner from where he’d just virtually come from. He clicked the ‘Show Ruler’ icon and drew a yellow line from the rooftop, across the river and all the way across the park to the bench; it came up at around 365 meters. Hmmm, I wonder, he thought.

  Just then Rhodes heard DC Ruddock moaning to himself as he got up and threw his jacket over his shoulder in annoyance.

  ‘Everything alright over there, Jack?’ he asked.

  ‘Same old, same old, just another shit detail I’ve been given and I know for a fact that this is going to take me way past my shift.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That woman and the stolen sniper rifle business.’

  ‘Oh, what about it?’ said Rhodes.

  ‘The tech guys down in Herts came up with a couple of phone numbers that this Natalie woman called from her mobile. They also got the names and addresses to go with the numbers and guess which mug has got to go out and question them?’ he said, striding across the office floor towards the door.

  ‘Wait, who are they?’

  Ruddock looked at the piece of paper in his hand, ‘Two males, both in Cambridge.’

  ‘Who’s going with you?’

  ‘Rent, if I can find him, I’m going to check the canteen.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll go with you instead,’ said Rhodes, grabbing up his jacket off the back of his chair.

  ‘So what details do we have on them?’ asked Rhodes as Ruddock pulled out of the car park at Hinchingbrooke FHQ to make the short 20-minute journey down the A14 to Cambridge.

  ‘One’s a young Chinese fella, a student, and the other guys a landlord, owns a couple of houses in Cambridge, rents out rooms as part of a house share,’ said Ruddock.

  ‘What have they gleaned from them so far?’ asked Rhodes.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Herts constabulary, I’m assuming they phoned these two gentleman, what information did they get?’

  ‘Oh, well, when they gave the Chinese guy the exact date and time that he received the call and told him it was a woman he said he suspected he might have sold her his car.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well he has records of selling his car that day and he doesn’t get many phone calls from women. He suspects the woman who phoned him that day was the woman phoning about the car he’d advertised on the Auto Trader website. They’ve already checked the V5 document, it was recently registered to a woman called Heather Paige, with an address down in London – they’re getting local CID to go and question her too.’

  ‘Ok, what about the other guy, the landlord?’

  ‘Not sure about him, he gets loads of phone calls and said it could have been any number of people, he can’t remember. But these are the only two leads we have. The woman hasn’t made many calls from that number. In fact her mobile was only set up and registered around the same time she bought the car, if, of course, it was this Natalie woman who bought the car. It’s a pay-as-you-go phone.’

  ‘Ok, let’s go and see the Chinese fella first,’ said Rhodes.

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  Rhodes’s brain was turning over at a rate of knots, mentally exploring every avenue in minute detail. During the 17-mile journey down the A14 to Cambridge he didn’t say another word, he just sat in the passenger seat, thinking, contemplating, analysing, working things out methodically. No, it can’t be, thought Rhodes. If it was Helen Kramer who’d stolen Peter Jackson’s rifle and if it was Helen Kramer who’d bought the used car off the Chinese student in Cambridge, then it would almost certainly be Helen Kramer who’d phoned the landlord that day, which means, if this actually is Helen Kramer, then she could be renting a room in one of those two houses owned by the landlord. That would be too easy, but it’s happened several times in the past when Rhodes thought something was going to be difficult, but it all just fell into place with ease.

  Rhodes figured if they went to see the guy who’d sold the car first they could get mor
e details: a description of the woman who bought it, and exact details of the car. Then, armed with this information they could go and visit the landlord and get a description of all the females who were renting rooms off him and then get the addresses of the two houses he owns in Cambridge. There can’t be many people living in them, two houses, perhaps three per house? And how many of those would be women? It should be quiet easy to figure out if the woman who bought the car matches any description the landlord gives of any of the women who are renting rooms in his houses.

  Of course, it could be a wild goose chase, but it was too much of a coincidence and, Rhodes had one of his gut feelings about this, and his gut feelings were typically right.

  It seemed like Helen Kramer could well be hell bent on getting revenge on Derek Stanton, to the point that she might actually try to kill him, the police knew this from her husband, John. Then this Peter Jackson character is contacted by a woman – calling herself Natalie and claiming to be researching a novel she was writing about a sniper – within days of Helen Kramer moving out of her family home. And now, Mr Jackson’s rifle and some ammo had been stolen from his house by the same woman – after he’d trained her in the art of long-range killing – who the police now suspected was living somewhere northeast of the city of Cambridge. Could it be that Helen Kramer was planning to assassinate Derek Stanton with a sniper rifle? It sounded quite elaborate, it would take some planning on her part, the façade of being a writer researching a novel just so she could befriend, and sleep with, an ex Para so she could steal his rifle. It was possible and Rhodes figured that any woman (or man) could be capable of anything to avenge the brutal deaths of their children, especially when they’d been tortured and abused in a basement crypt for twelve consecutive months, but was Helen Kramer capable of this? Rhodes was starting to think that maybe she was and within the next hour or so he and Ruddock could find out for sure.

  They arrived at the house in Trumpington and rang on the bell, the door was answered by a young, well turned out, Chinese man.

  ‘Mr Táng?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Rhodes, Cambridgeshire CID. This is DC Ruddock,’ he said, holding up his warrant card. ‘We’d like to ask you some questions about the woman you sold your car to, the silver Honda Civic?’

  ‘Ah, yes, come in.’

  ‘Mr Táng, firstly, can you remember anything about the woman, her age, what she looked like?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she was about thirty, thirty-five maybe. Quite slim and attractive.’

  ‘What about her height?’

  ‘Ah, she same height as me, I remember this.’

  ‘How tall are you, Mr Táng?’

  ‘One seven two centimetre,’ he said, while Ruddock took notes.

  ‘What about her hair, length, colour?’

  ‘Err, not long, but not too short, this length,’ he said, touching his neck to indicate.

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘Black, very black.’

  ‘What do you mean, very black?’

  ‘Err, not real.’

  ‘Not real?’

  ‘Dye, she dye it.’

  ‘How do you know that Mr Táng?’ said Rhodes.

  ‘It not look natural, not like mine, her was, hard explain, had kind of purple shine to it, in bright light.’

  ‘How did she pay for the car?’

  ‘Cash, she pay cash.’

  ‘What about her voice, can you remember how she sounded, did she have an accent?’

  ‘She was very polite, had manners, educated. Her accent was, I don’t know, good? I don’t know how explain, didn’t sound strange. Sorry, I’m not being very helpful.’

  ‘You’re doing fine Mr Táng,’ said Rhodes.

  Ruddock butted in, ‘When you said it didn’t sound strange, you mean she didn’t have an unusual accent, Scottish or Irish or Northern perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, that right, she had very clean English accent, no strange sounds, sound like my English teacher at Uni. She English woman, sound very articulate with neutral accent.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can remember about her appearance, anything unusual?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, just normal English woman.’

  ‘Can you remember what she was wearing?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry. Oh, black trousers, not a dress, I remember from when she got in car to test drive it.’

  ‘Did she say anything about where she lived, if she was local, anything like that?’

  ‘No, she didn’t say much, sorry.’

  ‘That’s ok, thank you, Mr Táng, you’ve been most helpful. If you think of anything else, please call me,’ said Rhodes, handing Mr Táng his card.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ said Ruddock, starting the car.

  ‘I think this Natalie women who bought Mr Táng’s car is Helen Kramer.’

  ‘You’re shitting me?’

  ‘No I’m not, I’ve spent a bit of time going over the Kramer twins case file and I’ve done some research of my own. I think Helen Kramer’s planning to assassinate Derek Stanton with that rifle.’

  ‘Jesus, you really think the woman that bought Táng’s car is Helen Kramer?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, it’s just a gut instinct, but the age and physical description match. I know the hair colour’s different, but Mr Táng was convinced it was dyed anyway. It could be her, let’s go and see this landlord.’

  The landlord told Rhodes and Ruddock that he only had two females renting rooms off him at the moment, one was Asian so she was out, the other fitted the description that Mr Táng had given: a woman in her thirties with jet black hair, quite slim and pretty. Though the landlord didn’t know what car she owned, he also didn’t know her surname, which Rhodes found odd. But Mr Stokes told them that she paid cash in advance and he didn’t bother with any security checks because she seemed like a nice lady. More like you thought she had a nice arse, thought Ruddock as he looked the sleazy git up and down, Ruddock soon had his number.

  ‘Mr Stokes, which of your properties does Natalie live in?’

  ‘The one on Elmfield Road, just up the road.’

  ‘Would you be kind enough to come with us to the property to let us in so we can take a look inside?’ said Rhodes.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ said Ruddock.

  ‘Ok, let me grab my keys.’

  Just then Ruddock’s mobile rang. ‘Ruddock,’ he said. He listened for a moment. ‘Ok, thanks.’ He turned to Rhodes, said, ‘That woman down in London, Heather Paige. Well, for a start, the address on the V5 document wasn’t hers, the couple who live at that address had never heard of a Heather Paige and they certainly haven’t bought a used Honda Civic recently, they own a Mazda 3, which they bought a year ago.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Rhodes.

  Mr Stokes gave Ruddock directions from his seat in the back of the pool car. ‘Turn left, it’s just a few minutes from here,’ said Mr Stokes.

  ‘Think we should call for backup?’ said Ruddock, ‘I mean, if it is Helen Kramer, and if she has a gu—, you know, maybe we should get an armed response team down here,’ he said, talking quietly in the hope that Mr Stokes in the back would not overhear too much.

  ‘Let’s just play it by ear. If it is her, its Stanton she wants, I doubt she’d try anything with us.’

  ‘You don’t think she’d try and blast her way out of there, I mean, there’s nothing worse than a woman backed into a corner, trust me.’

  Rhodes, also having Ruddock’s number, didn’t know what to say to that so he just said, ‘She won’t do that.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  When they arrived there was no sign of a silver Honda Civic outside, or nearby. Mr Stokes opened the front door with his key and told DS Rhodes where her room was, upstairs, last door on the right.

  ‘Ok, Mr Stokes, I want you to wait down here,’ said Rhodes, in a whisper.

  Rhodes and Ruddock crept up the stair
s and along the corridor to the room in question. Ruddock didn’t want to knock on the door, he didn’t fancy warning the woman in the room, if she was home, as that could give her a chance to load up that rifle and blast him through the door, so, before Rhodes knew what had happened, Ruddock had barged passed him, grabbed the door handle and found it to be unlocked. He flung it open and steamed in like a bull in a china shop – yup, it was just like Rhodes’s new colleagues had said about Big Jack, ‘He’s not CSI, he’s BFI, Brute Force and Ignorance’.

  Chapter 31

  Helen

  I’d slipped up, big time. I should have destroyed my pay-as-you-go phone and dumped it, along with the sim, somewhere en route from St Albans to Cambridge, then tossed the broken parts into a river somewhere. But my heart, my stupid heart, stopped me, I felt compelled to apologise to Peter for what I’d done, even though I knew that my mobile could act as a GPS locator for the police. I should have followed my gut instinct and ditched the phone, how stupid of me.

  He would have almost certainly phoned the police, reported his rifle and ammunition missing, then he would have told them all about me, including my pay-as-you-go number. I was already back in Cambridge when Peter phoned me this morning and if he had given the police my mobile number they would been able to get a rough GPS fix as to my location – my rented room – when I took the call. Though to be honest I’ve read a lot of varying opinions – via the authors of the many crime novels I’ve read – regarding the accuracy of getting a GPS fix from a mobile phone, everything from a few streets to 25 miles. I doubted the police could locate the exact house I was in when I made or received a call, but I was only 99 per cent certain of that fact, and, right now, that wasn’t good enough.

  Oh my god, I’d made a few other calls from that mobile, not many, but one was to the guy I’d bought the used Civic from. If the police dug further, and I had to assume that they would, then they would be getting in touch with him, if they hadn’t already. Oh no, shit, I also phoned the number advertised online, about the room to rent in the house, my landlord. Shit, the police could be on their way to see the landlord right now, who in turn would lead them right to me.