by Linda Mather
Gut Instinct
Linda was born in Easington Colliery, Co Durham in 1958, and then moved to Leicester in the early 1960’s, which is where she spent her childhood. But, it was in ‘Shakespeare County,’ Warwickshire, where she says she ‘grew up’ during and after completing her counselling diploma.
She is now an experienced counsellor, supervisor, & trainer, behavioral family therapist & author of self help books. She has three grown up children and eight grandchildren.
This is Linda’s first novel.
Also by Linda Mather
Self help books:
I shall wear purple
I shall be blue
I shall be clean
Gut instinct is Linda’s first novel
Linda Mather
GUT INSTINCT
Copyright © [2012] by [Linda Mather]
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1480056152
Cover art by Dreamstime
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real person’s, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
For my Auntie Anne Theobald, who would have loved this book, and was the loveliest woman and kindest of friends. She is missed by all that loved her and knew her.
Forever in our hearts.
**********
For my Grandma Violet Burns who adored me as much as my mum did and greatly encouraged my creativity.
Forever in our hearts
**********
For my Dad Owen Williams who would have been so proud. Life will never be the same without you; singing solo is not the same.
Forever in our hearts
“A man who has been the undisputable favourite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror” – Sigmund Freud
Prologue
“I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio”
I’ve never forgotten that quote,
I’d read it in one of my mothers magazines, it was Joan Rivers and I had spent hours admiring her photograph believing that this was what I should look like, be like.
I was about thirteen at the time. She, Joan Rivers, had the same kind of mother as I had. I no longer felt so alone in the world, knowing there were others just like me.
One day I will be famous I had thought, and I will say things like that, let them know exactly what my mother was – a whore, a child abuser and a nonentity, at least she was now.
I’d had dreams, dreams that never came true, my life, and my waking hours had been one long nightmare and my sleep had been my respite where I could wish for happier times, when I could dream about blissful times, about becoming someone like Joan Rivers.
My dreams are what kept me sane, kept me from wanting to die, when I awoke from the dream I would want to sleep again to go back into the dream that helped me to escape my miserable life.
Being born is like a lottery, you don’t know which mother you are going to get. I was number 326 lining up waiting to be embedded in some woman’s womb; ironically 325 didn’t feel well on the day of my consummation so was made to sit out.
If he had been well then my life might have been so very different, I would have got a nice mother then. Instead I got ‘her’; instead I drew the short straw.
Did your child get the short straw?
Hey you! I’m talking to you!
Put the book down,
YES YOU!
Did your child get the short straw or was he lucky and won the lottery!
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history” – Martin Luther King Junior
This means that I have been made by my history, my life has made me who I am and also my mother, she has made me who I am today.
Or would I have been like this anyway, was it in my DNA, was it nature or nurture?
Perhaps you will be able to answer my question after reading my story, after living in my world even if just for the time it takes to read this book, or after stepping into the shoes that I was forced to wear either by my upbringing or by my DNA.
So please don’t judge me as you read my story as this could have been you, if you had drawn the short straw like I did.
**********
Chapter One
Saturday 8 March
The call had come in at twelve fifteen and Detective Sergeant Stephen Roberts was sitting at his desk going through all the papers that had been prepared for the Crime Prosecution Service for a rape case, that they had been working on.
It was not unusual for him to be in his office on a Saturday morning, he used this time when the station was quiet to do paperwork. They never seemed to have the time in the week.
Unlike most other professions, in the police force they were never allocated with paperwork time. Merely, had to do it when they could and Saturday mornings were the only time Stephen found that he could. You couldn’t turn down jobs because you had paperwork to do, if you were called out that was it, everything else had to go on hold.
He was the only one in, and it was extremely quiet, ghostly quiet in fact, most of his staff had the weekend off, there had been nothing urgent brewing, he was the head of the homicide division and thankfully murders didn’t occur every week.
He was feeling relatively pleased with his team, they’d cleared this case up pretty quickly. They had speedily and smoothly arrested and charged a twenty five year old lad who had raped and killed a girl under the influence of methamphetamine, he was now safely tucked up in a cell in Leicester prison, remanded until his appearance in court.
All that was left to do was ensure that they presented an airtight case against him, and as was customary the CPS relied on them to do that.
Stephen was a handsome man for fifty two, almost six foot and had a physique akin to someone who was a frequent visitor to the gym. He wasn’t. He had only ever been to the gym once in his life, he was just lucky to have genes that maintained this muscular build.
He had dark hair with distinguished grey streaks and presented in a confident but not arrogant manner. His most striking feature were his eyes, they were a deep blue with long dark lashes serenading them, eyes that you could imagine falling into, and find yourself swimming in a warm pool of clear blue water.
He had been a detective sergeant for four years now and thoroughly enjoyed his job. He prided himself on being a fair boss, a good cop and was well and truly respected by his team, and his management.
The paperwork was almost done and he was about to wrap up, go home and preen himself for his night in with Tanya, his girlfriend, when his mobile vibrated and then rang on his desk, it was the standard ring tone that came with the phone.
Stephen hated the song tunes that incessantly boomed out in the station when it was busy. He had put forward a suggestion to have them banned as he felt that they were a distraction, he had wanted everyone to have the standard ring tones, but it hadn’t gone down very well. So he’d binned that idea for the time being and hoped that people would follow his example.
“Stephen Roberts” he’d answered, and listened patiently to the caller on the other end.
The next thing he knew he was in his car and reversing out of the station car park, with all thoughts of this rape case and telephone ring tones out of his mind.
There was something much more serious for him to deal with now.
The traffic was mild today on the streets of Leicester possibly because of the gentle rain that was coming down, rain that hadn’t stopped all day. In fact for the last few months it had rained most days “wouldn’t stop a hose pipe ban in the summer though” Stephen had thought, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the rhythm of his window wipers.
He sped past the shops, houses and factories without giving them a second gl
ance. He knew where he was heading, he knew the area well.
The Peckleton Estate was a run-down council estate at the other side of town. He’d spent a good majority of his time on this estate as a rookie cop, dealing with a many number of issues from domestic violence to drug dealing.
It was an area that was once a tidy housing estate for those that couldn’t afford their own home’s, but had now become a neighbourhood of poverty, drug use and juvenile offenders. The resident’s proudly collecting asbo’s as if they were medals of honour.
He turned into a cul-de-sac and immediately saw the yellow and black police tape already in place blowing softly in the mild breeze, opposite the wasteland.
Behind the tape was an unusual amount of onlookers, curiosity etched on their faces.
He was on Bakewell Road which had a row of council houses on the left hand side and on the right was a working men’s club, next to this was a wasteland that had recently boasted a children’s play area, which had already been pulled apart and defaced with graffiti.
At club opening times the play area would be full of kids, content with their pop and crisps having been left outside to play whilst their parents were inside drinking themselves to a stupor.
This Stephen thought would account for the crowds of people hovering on the wasteland, he looked at the clock on his dashboard, it was twelve forty five, and a Saturday, and the club would have been packed at this time. It wouldn’t have taken long for word to get around.
He pulled up behind two police cars and a forensic van, got out of the car and took a quick glance at the onlookers, some holding pints of beer, nosey, but not nosey enough to leave their drinks on the bar. Kids sitting on their bike’s, or with skateboards tucked under their arms.
They were all looking at him, no doubt inquisitively wondering who he was.
Was he someone they could ask what was going on, so that they could spread rumours instantly around their peers, adding bits on, the more gruesome the better enabling them to score points. It was their warped perception of information sharing, so that they could then bask in their own glory. For a while, a very short while at least, their kudos inflated.
He walked up to the house, ducked under the police tape and showed his card to the officer on guard outside the crime scene.
Stephen didn’t know what to expect when he entered the house, he’d not been given all the details, he’d not asked for them, he had been too eager to get there and get down to work.
He was pleased to see that two of his officers Derek Angus and John Waterstone had followed all the necessary procedures. The police tape had been put in place and the scene of crime officers were there in their white ghost like overalls protecting the scene, and collecting evidence that would be vital to a court case.
Just as John had come into his thoughts he spotted him walking towards him, looking calm but a shade whiter than he normally looked.
“What’s cooking?” he asked, as John approached him.
“Girl dead sir” he replied “Jane Smith, thirty five years old, single mum. Looks like she has been suffocated with her own pillow, she was found this morning by her sister who had been babysitting her little boy, she brought him back at eleven as had been pre-arranged and she found her on the floor dead.”
“Any leads? Where are the sister and kid now?” Stephen asked.
“No leads as yet sir, sister’s in the kitchen in absolute bits, we’ve not been able to talk to her yet and the kid is with a neighbour, do you want me to try and talk to her now sir?”
“No, just carry on with what you were doing and I will talk to her after I’ve spoken to the pathologist, I assume he’s here is he?”
“Just arrived before you sir, he’s in the living room with the er.. body”
“Any sign of forced entry or anything missing?” Stephen asked almost as an afterthought.
“No sir, to the forced entry, not sure if any things missing till we speak to the sister, but nothing obvious”
“Okay John thank you for your good work, we’ll catch up later” he said as he walked away in the direction of the living room.
He was pleased that it was not going to be too gory a scene, but thinking that it was an unusual cause of death, he couldn’t recall being called out to a death by suffocation before, not by a pillow anyway.
Chapter Two
Stephen sat at his desk at the station, looking at the evidence before him; he had called a meeting for the following morning with his team to look at what had been done so far in the investigation and what they needed to do.
He’d sent Derek and John on a door to door with immediate neighbours this evening and to try and track down and speak to the friends that she was out with.
There was not a lot they could do until they got the pathologist report in, but he knew that he would find something, there would be no weekend leave this weekend and those that were off had been called in. He needed his full team to put this one to bed.
He thought about all the onlookers at the scene, the people watching curiosity etched on their faces, his mind’s eye thinking back to those faces. Anyone of them could have been the killer, come back to look at his handy work or to get off on what he had done.
He made a note to himself to look through the notes or statements that he had asked the uniform guys to get from the bystanders if they had seen anything.
Stephen had spoken to the pathologist on the scene and he had said that she had most certainly been suffocated and that the time of death would have been approximately between the hours of 2 a.m and 4 a.m.
He had said that he wouldn’t know if there had been any sexual assault until he got her to the lab, but there were no external bruising which sometimes can indicate that type of attack, but he was not ruling it out. He’d assured Stephen that he would report in as soon as he had anything.
Stephen had also spoken to the sister; she was extremely upset, but didn’t know much at all.
Jane was a single parent of a 4 year old boy and that she had babysat for her most Friday nights while she went out with the girls.
The father of the child was a builder, he worked abroad most of the time and that he was currently in Germany. She believed that he was expected back in about a week’s time for a week’s holiday and he had planned to spend that time with his son.
Although Jane and her ex had encountered a volatile relationship at the time they were together, they had an amicable relationship now for the sake of the boy.
Jane hadn’t been in any other relationship as far as she knew and was not involved in anything that could have put her in danger.
There was nothing much to go on there then, he reflected, nothing much at all.
It was a mystery, Stephen thought, not something he had ever come across before.
He picked up the polythene evidence bag and stared at the contents for a long time.
A small white card one inch by three inches, it had been cut to size around two sides. This was the strangest piece of evidence they had, the only piece of evidence they had at the moment, the writing on it typed in bold capital letters in what looked like times new roman. It had been found in her hand:
GUESS WHO?
Who was that message for he wondered, there was something not quite right about this, it wasn’t a spontaneous murder, and it was definitely pre-meditated, if the perpetrator had gone to the trouble of making this card.
Someone wanted someone to know that he had done this.
Who and why?
Why would anyone suffocate a girl and then leave a card saying this. Perhaps it was a message for the estranged husband, perhaps he had upset someone and this was his payback.
Or the sister, although she didn’t look as though she was hiding anything, she seemed pretty sincere and Stephen was quite good at picking up signs of people lying.
She gave good eye contact, was not fidgety at all, nor was she sweating or in any great rush to get away, which was often the signs of people who were
lying and her story, was very precise.
He picked the phone up and rang Tanya, he had left a message on her answering machine to cancel this evening, but it was still early yet and he was ready to get out of this place and have some fun. Switch off for a while.
He had learned over the years that you could over think and that was dangerous when investigating a case. You could lose sight of the facts or miss something of significance. So sometimes it was more helpful to focus on something else for a while and go back to things with a fresh mind and a fresh eye.
He knew exactly what would do this, a passionate night with Tanya, sex was always something that cleared his mind for a while.
Tanya had been his girlfriend for eight months now and she was beginning to feel like a cosy pair of slippers to him. He didn’t mind that, he liked it; he hated the ‘newness’ of a relationship, he got no joy from the insecurity, the anticipation or the anxieties of the initial dates.
“Hello” her husky voice came on the line.
“Hi honey, did you get my message? He asked endearingly.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine, no problem.”
“Well I’ve just finished up here now love and wondered if you fancied some company?” he asked anxiously hoping for an affirmative reply.
“Yes, no problem, I’ll put some wine on ice” and she put down the phone before he could reply, knowing that he would be requesting something ‘naughty’ and not in the mood to play telephone sex games.
He grabbed his coat and headed out of the the station whistling, happy that he was going to get laid.
Chapter Three
Sunday 9 March
It was 8.30 a.m. Sunday morning and Stephen was preparing his notes for the 9.00 a.m meeting he had called with his team.
They’d all arrived, he had seen them wandering in, some were buzzing around with excited anticipation and others were dragging their feet, candidly pissed off with being called in on their day off.
It was just a small team, down to the usual limited resources, a team of eight, but all had come in and that was the main thing, he could cope with their disinclination as long as they had turned in. He sensed that they would need all the man power they had for this one.