I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass (The Christy Kennedy Mysteries Book 2)

by Paul Charles

  As they waited, Kennedy inquired, ‘Do you know anything about…’ he checked the name on the doorbell again, ‘…this Hurst?’

  The Detective Sergeant noticed that Kennedy was flexing the fingers of his right hand, which delayed his reply for a second or two.

  ‘Yes, sir, Brian Hurst. He’s the one who rang us. Apparently a friend, female, came round this morning to see Marianne and when she couldn’t raise her, she buzzed Mr Hurst, who–’

  ‘HURST!’ the rough electronic voice pronounced from the tiny door speaker, cutting DS Irvine short.

  ‘It’s Detective Inspector Kennedy and DS Irvine. We’d like to talk to you about–’

  ‘Okay, I’ll buzz you in. Come on up,’ instructed Mr Brian Hurst, cutting short a member of Camden Town CID for the second time in a minute.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Who do you talk to

  When a body’s in trouble?

  - Mary Margaret O’Hara

  Capital Gold, London’s most popular radio station was airing the Beach Boys’ classic ‘Good Vibrations’ as Kennedy and the DS entered the second-floor flat. The DS grabbed the volume button and inconsiderately faded the flawless song during the Ouija board (synthesizer) bit.

  Brian Hurst’s flat was a total contrast to his neighbour’s: bright, airy, clean and packed to the ceiling with books, records, CDs, prints and photographs. It was obviously a flat furnished and decorated to be lived in and enjoyed. Mr Hurst was dressed in keeping with his habit; a man comfortable – cocky, even – about who and what he was. Even in the privacy of his flat he was dressed as though he were at a dinner party: brown leather slip-on shoes, fawn slacks, red button-up cardigan (the lower buttons under some strain), white shirt top button undone to reveal a yellow cravat. He had well-groomed but thinning hair and was the kind of chap who always had trouble impressing his girlfriend’s mother.

  He greeted DI Kennedy (straight to the senior officer) with a formality and lack of warmth that immediately set the tone of business. Business which had to be done, and the sooner the better.

  Kennedy had other ideas. He liked to be in control of the pace of such proceedings. He asked if it would be possible to have a cup of tea. The immediate implication was that this was not going to be a quick couple of questions. Brian Hurst, surprised at the request, agreed. He was not to know that the DI was something of a connoisseur as far as tea was concerned; in fact its preparation and consumption was one of his principal interests.

  Kennedy followed Hurst into the long kitchen. He had long since discovered two very important facts: one, that most people don’t wait until the water is properly boiled before applying it to the tea; and, two, that people find it harder to lie while part of their mind is engaged on another function. There just might be a tell-tale pause at a vital stage in the conversation. On the other hand, there just might not.

  ‘These kitchens really are, er, tiny…’ Kennedy didn’t know how to complete the sentence, and wished he’d never started it.

  ‘Oh, I suppose it all depends on your needs, Sergeant. It quite suits me. Milk and sugar?’

  Fifteen-love, Kennedy thought wryly, smiling at his sudden demotion. ‘Yes, milk and two sugars for myself and the detective sergeant here takes it black.’ Perhaps not fifteen-all, but definitely a net ball.

  He noticed three empty Pouilly Fume ’94 bottles neatly lined up along the back of the bleached-wood drying board beside the sink. They appeared to be guarding a solitary Guinness bottle.

  ‘Now, how can I help you, gentlemen?’ began the unwilling host.

  ‘Well, you could start by telling us if you heard anything suspicious last–’ DS Irvine attempted a start.

  ‘Suspicious? Suspicious? Only if you’d call the start of World War bloody Three suspicious.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Kennedy’s voice and eyebrows quizzed.

  ‘Well, they were at it again last night, weren’t they?’ Hurst replied, as he led the officers through to the living room. ‘She’d obviously got some money from somewhere, and she and her friend – bloody noisy boyfriend – came back from the off-licence and fought.

  ‘They were always either fighting or bonking, either way it was a major racket. Last night it was a fight.

  ‘I banged on my floor a few times, but to no effect. After some time it went quiet and then it got noisy again, worse than before. Then she must have thrown him out because I heard the door bang. Nearly pulled it off the hinges, they did. The entire building shook.’ Brian Hurst kept eye contact only with DS Irvine.

  ‘What time would this have been?’ Kennedy quizzed as he sipped his unexciting cup of tea.

  ‘About eleven forty-five. Yes, eleven forty-five – that silly Richard Littlejohn TV show was just finishing. I mean to say…now I ask you, how does someone like that get on TV for a spot, let alone their own TV show? Prat. I was glad to see the end of him and I was waiting for the midnight movie to start.

  ‘Maybe it could have been a bit later. I’m not exactly sure, to be perfectly honest with you. I was so annoyed at them.’ Hurst nodded in the direction of his floor – Marianne bloody MacIntyre’s ceiling.

  ‘Do you know the name of her boyfriend?’ the DS inquired, he too putting to one side his insipid tea.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do actually. He’s called Ray Morris.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to give the detective sergeant here a description, sir?’ said Kennedy. He tried another sip of tea before giving it up as a lost cause. ‘I’m going back to North Bridge House,’ he told Irvine. ‘Can you make sure everything downstairs is taken care of, and get someone on to finding this Ray Morris.’

  He smiled at Brian Hurst as he let himself out. ‘Thanks for your time and your tea, sir.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  You’ve broken the speed of the sound of loneliness

  You’re out there running

  Just to be on the run

  - John Prine

  WPC Coles was walking up the steps of North Bridge House, former monastery and current home of Camden Town CID, as Kennedy arrived.

  ‘How did your man take the news that his house had burned out?’ he inquired, overtaking and beating her to the large wood and glass doors, before holding the left one open for her. A gentle mizzle refreshed the streets of Camden.

  ‘He hasn’t found out yet,’ she replied, smiling her thanks and accepting his courtesy. In the ongoing war of equality, Anne Coles felt good manners were still good manners and even if she didn’t expect it from men in the police force, she respected it. ‘I’ve been across to his office this morning and they’ve promised to contact me the moment he returns.’

  The burly Timothy Flynn, desk sergeant at North Bridge House for Kennedy’s eight years there, and probably a lot more besides, greeted the WPC and Kennedy with a warm smile. ‘DS Irvine rang for you, sir. He left a number – it’s here somewhere.’ He rummaged through the organised chaos of his desk. ‘Ah! Here it is.’

  Kennedy settled into his comfortable office in North Bridge House, the oldest building in Camden. He had spent the first couple of years in Camden making his office a comfortable home from home, all at his own expense. He couldn’t abide the traditional police office, which was practically a bomb site on wheels: furniture as comfortable as sitting on stones, case files and reports gushing out of every cupboard and drawer and threatening to drown the inhabitants. The DI honestly didn’t know how men and women were expected to work, let alone think, in such surroundings. So he visited the Camden antique and second-hand furniture stores and, like a bird lining his nest, kept returning with bits and pieces. Now he had a room he was happy to spend hours in.

  It is an established fact that the majority of victims know their murderers, and Kennedy had already put the death of Marianne MacIntyre down as a domestic. But on checking the files, he discovered that there had been no reports of assaults on Marianne, nor on anyone else at that address for that matter.

  He dialled the number Irvine had left with
the desk sergeant. The phone rang several times before it was answered with a gruff, indignant ‘Yes?’

  ‘DI Christy Kennedy here. Could I speak to DS Irvine, please?’

  Kennedy could hear, through the telephone static, ‘It’s for you.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Jimmy.’

  ‘The weirdest thing, sir. Ray Morris – you know, the boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He turned up here at Marianne’s flat about half an your ago, looking a bit the worst for wear. Totally bedraggled, but no visible bruises or obvious marks on his body. They’re bringing him down to North Bridge House now, sir.’

  ‘Good. I’ll be waiting for him, but I might let him sit it out for a bit till I receive the initial report from Dr Taylor. How did he react?’ Kennedy conveyed down the telephone line.

  ‘Well, perhaps it would be best if I see you when I return to the station, sir.’

  ‘What?’ Kennedy pictured the DS at the other end of the line wearing a tweed suit hopping from foot to foot in his well-polished brogues and playing his cards so close to his chest that he was in danger of wiping the spots off them. ‘Oh, is our good friend Brian Hurst nearby?’

  The electronic signal in his earpiece translated into, ‘Yes, exactly. Well, I’ll see you shortly, sir.’

  The line went dead. Well, not completely dead. It sounded like the Irish Sea, just after the pubs close.

  Kennedy, if he were a betting man, which he wasn’t, would have put his money on Ray Morris not showing up for some time.

  Kennedy guessed that both Ray and Marianne liked to suck on a Guinness bottle and, after a few bottles, could have turned to fighting. Perhaps with a recurring theme, such as one accusing the other of drinking too much or (a popular one with drunks) the Northern Ireland Troubles; maybe even a new subject like how useful the fin on a Porsche really is. Perhaps even the stupidity of drinking.

  In her stupor, perhaps Marianne egged him on, and on, perhaps a scene they had enacted several times before. Only this time, when he took his hands from her throat, she did not move; they did not mix alcoholic vapours with a kiss, and make up and make out.

  Marianne MacIntyre had not regained consciousness.

  Ray Morris, Kennedy supposed had scurried off, full of remorse. The same remorse which had forced him to return to the scene of the crime.

  In a considerable number of cases such unfortunates are happy to be caught; in fact they need to be caught to gain redemption. Such culprits are novices, amateurs in crime, and it is always only a matter of time before they are arrested by the (supposedly) professionals: the police. Even so, things were never quite this clear-cut for Kennedy and his colleagues at Camden Town CID, who spent many a long hour (not to mention a few pounds) on their investigations and still failed to find the culprit sixty per cent of the time.

  How could they devote all this time and money to their work and still get it wrong? Not only do they get it wrong. When they finish, another set of professionals, the legal system, would sometimes convict and punish the wrong person, thereby creating a second set of victims for one crime.

  Such notions and other thoughts, such as more pleasant musings about ann rea, filled Kennedy’s mind as he busied himself on his paperwork. It certainly looked as if he was going to move his case into his out-tray in double-swift time, thus freeing his manpower, not to mention brain power, for the five other cases currently battling for attention on his desk.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  But it’s easy come and it’s easy go

  All this talking it’s only bravado

  - Paul Buchanan

  ‘So listen now, Morris, and listen good. We know there were mitigating circumstances and in these liberal days, judges and juries seem to be taking that into account. But – and it’s a big but – for that little scenario to work, we have to say in our report that you were co-operative. At the moment I would need to say that you were being anything but co-operative.’

  Ray Morris just stared at his interrogators. The senior didn’t look much older than the junior, who was Scottish and dressed rather too smartly, and he looked rather too proud to be a policeman. The boss, too, was well-dressed in fresh blue shirt, black tie with green stripes and the trousers and waistcoat from a dark blue suit. He had green bands on his arms to keep his shirt cuffs from getting grubby or frayed. They were both staring at him willing him to make their work easier.

  ‘Sure, it’s simple Detective Inspector, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Marianne.’

  ‘But you were heard arguing with her last night, laddie, and this morning she’s dead,’ the detective sergeant cut in, gently pushing the pressure up a notch.

  ‘I did not kill Marianne!’

  ‘Look, maybe, and I mean maybe, it was an accident; maybe you both had too much to drink and things got out of control and you didn’t mean to kill her,’ reasoned the detective inspector.

  ‘Why would I have gone back to the flat for you lot to find me? Why wouldn’t I just have kept on running?’

  Morris definitely looked the worse for wear. Three-day beard (ginger), dirty jeans (blue Levi’s), even dirtier t-shirt (blue and white Van Morrison ’88 Tour). Though his breath smelt of alcohol, his wits were keen.

  ‘Look, yes we argued,’ he went on. ‘Sure, we argued. I was, well, to tell you the truth, I was trying to leave her.

  ‘She was dragging me down, she had no self-respect. She just didn’t care about anything, any more. And every time I tried to get us both out of the drink, she’d pay no heed. She’d just laugh.

  ‘And I wanted to…I want to…stop drinking, Inspector, I really do. I want a life again. I need a life. I’ve looked over the edge and it’s ugly, fucking ugly, as ugly as growing old. I’ve got to give myself a chance.’ Morris paused and Kennedy nodded to DS Irvine to let the silence hang.

  Outside the room they could hear people walking up and down the corridor, doors shutting, echoing laughter, darts of conversation. From the street, sounds of busy traffic on Parkway were muffled by the double-glazing of one of the twenty-one windows fronting North Bridge House.

  When it became apparent that Ray Morris was not going to break the stilted silence within the room, Kennedy spoke. His voice was soft and almost soothing. ‘Well, Ray, I can accept that. I can. And I can see how it would have happened. You wanted to get sober. You were trying and Marianne was taunting you and laughing at you, and pretty soon all you could hear was her laughter. You weren’t mad at her, you were mad at yourself, because you saw that your life was less than useless and that you were unable to do anything about it.

  ‘And you tried to talk some sense into her but she wouldn’t listen, all she could do was laugh at you.’ Kennedy could see the scene so clearly; he continued describing it in a low sympathetic tone. ‘You grabbed her by the throat to try and either shake some sense into her or to stop that hideous laughter, or even both. And the more she laughed, the more you squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. And it felt good, it felt great. If only she had stopped laughing you could have stopped. But now the squeezing is not enough, so you start to shake her head at the same time, and then slowly she stops laughing and struggling and she goes limp and you let her go.

  ‘After she’s been lying there for a few minutes, motionless, you try to bring her round but she’s totally unresponsive. You think she’s passed out from the drink, like she has done hundreds of times before, so you leave her to sleep it off. Then you come back this morning, expecting her to have sobered up, and that’s when and why you bumped into my men.’

  Again silence filled the room, relieved only by the slightest of hums from the tape recorder waiting to absorb the well-prompted inevitable confession.

  ‘Look, sir, I don’t know how, but I’ve got to find a way of making you, making both of you, believe that I didn’t kill her – not by accident, not on purpose, not on anything. I just didn’t kill her.’

  Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy and Detective Sergeant James
Irvine participated in the age-old Metropolitan Police sport (not as yet a fixture of the Olympics) of synchronised sighing.

  This was going to take longer than Kennedy had imagined. He was just going to have to find another way of opening the door. He was totally confident of what awaited him on the other side. He sat back in his chair, a signal to Irvine that he wanted to back off and let the DS take the lead for a while.

  ‘Ray,’ Irvine began in his soft but firm Scottish accent. ‘We’ve seen from the photograph in your wallet that Marianne was a beautiful woman a few years back.’

  There was no response from Morris.

  ‘She was a stunner,’ persisted Irvine. In his accent the word ‘stunner’ was very sensual. ‘What happened to her? Why the…’ He searched for a word which would not be offensive. ‘Why the…er, fall?’

  ‘When I first met her, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful she was. She looked so innocent,’ said Morris dreamily.

  ‘How long have you know her?’

  Morris gave him an odd look. ‘You should have said had, not have.’ The horrible truth was starting to sink in. He returned his attention to the question, not without difficulty. ‘It’s coming up to twelve years now, so she would have been twenty-five when we first met.’

  ‘What, you mean she’s only – sorry, was, only – thirty-seven?’ interrupted Irvine in disbelief, before he could stop himself. It was not a question which should have been asked at that point, just when Morris seemed ready to go into a ramble – a ramble which may have offered a few clues. The narrator so caught up in his own recollection that he fails to take time to hide some of the hints of truth.

  Irvine cursed himself. But the simple fact of the matter was that he was so utterly shocked. He’d have sworn that the body he had seen not forty minutes before had been that of a female in her early- to mid-fifties.