by Graham Ison
Over the course of the seven years since, his once chiselled good looks had become fleshy, he had run to fat and developed a paunch that he was ill disposed to do anything about. Even more irritating, he had attempted to disguise the onset of his baldness by effecting a ridiculous fold-over hairstyle. And at ten o’clock each night when Sharon was at home, he would announce that he was ‘going to turn in’. And that was it: never any compliments on her appearance, never any affection, and definitely never any sex. The marriage was empty and loveless. It drove her mad and she felt trapped.
‘When are you on duty again?’ asked Cliff, pausing on his way out of the kitchen.
‘Next Wednesday afternoon, LHR to MIA, as usual.’ Sharon knew it was a formal question and one that he asked every time she was at home. But she sensed that he wasn’t really interested in whether she was there or not.
‘Where?’ Clifford raised his eyebrows.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Cliff!’ Sharon snapped at her husband impatiently. ‘Heathrow to Miami International,’ she said, slowly and distinctly. ‘I must have told you a hundred times what those codes mean. And to think you’re interested in aeroplanes.’
‘Oh yes, I believe you have, love.’ Clifford seemed not to notice her censorious tone and smiled infuriatingly.
‘I’ll make your cocoa.’ It appeared to Sharon that nothing would rile or excite her placid lump of a husband. Not even flaunting herself naked, as she frequently did.
Waiting until she heard him mounting the stairs, she put a single mug of cocoa in the microwave and switched it on. Once the cocoa was ready, she paused briefly to shed her kaftan and sling it over a kitchen stool.
Clifford was already in bed when Sharon entered the master bedroom. She handed him the mug of cocoa and sat down in a chair, waiting for him to drink it.
‘Aren’t you having any, love?’ he asked, completely oblivious to her nakedness.
Oh, if only he’d show some interest in my body and ask me if I was coming to bed, she thought. Or better still throw me on the bed and force himself on me. Oh God, how deliciously exciting that would be. But she knew it was a vain hope.
‘In a minute.’ Sharon had plenty of time; she had been preparing for this day for over a year now. ‘I’ll have mine in the kitchen. I’ve one or two things to do downstairs. I’ve got to close all the windows for a start.’
‘Oh Lord! Did I forget? Sorry, love, I should’ve done that.’ Clifford slowly consumed his cocoa. When he had finished, he put the mug on the bedside table, settled down and turned over so that his back was towards his wife.
Sharon returned to the ground floor and walked around the house, closing the windows. As she was in the act of drawing the curtains in the sitting room, a youth spotted her, paused wide-eyed, and then whistled loudly. She quickly closed the curtains.
Finally she went into the sitting room and sat down on the settee. Glancing at her wristwatch – the only thing she was wearing – she settled down to wait the hour before the next part of her plan could be brought to fruition.
She firmly believed that she had thought of everything, but in that she could not have been more wrong. Whatever else she may have learned in her short life, modern crime detection methods did not feature highly.
TWO
I have no idea why it should be that murders always seem to be carried out at a time that is most inconvenient to the police officers who are assigned to investigate them. Perhaps I’m just unfortunate enough to catch the homicides that occur in the small hours. Doubtless a team of erudite criminologists at some obscure university has spent thousands of pounds – or dollars – conducting a survey on the subject and will eventually publish its inconsequential conclusions. Nevertheless, such findings would undoubtedly be seized upon by the directing staff at the College of Policing and enthusiastically moulded into a grandiloquently boring lecture. And repeatedly delivered by a member of the team of resident sociologists to every successive course at what is laughingly referred to as ‘the policeman’s university’.
On the occasion of my latest murder it was getting on for one o’clock on a Sunday morning in late July. For once I was in my own bed rather than that of my girlfriend. The day had witnessed the onset of a heatwave, and at close to midnight it was still very hot and I had gone to bed with just a sheet over me and the windows wide open. For an hour, I twisted and turned, but was unable to sleep, not helped by the noise of the main-line trains passing through the nearby Surbiton railway station almost beneath my window.
Eventually giving up the struggle, I got up, intent on making myself a cup of tea and watching a repeat on television when my mobile rang.
‘DCI Brock, sir?’ queried the voice.
‘Yes, this is Harry Brock.’
‘It’s Gavin Creasey at the incident room, guv’nor. Did I disturb you?’
‘No, I had to get up to answer the phone,’ I said sarcastically. I knew that Creasey thought he might’ve been disturbing something else. ‘What is it, Gavin?’
‘A burglary and murder at Tarhill Road, West Drayton, guv. A private dwelling. One male victim.’
‘Wonderful! Just what I need. Arrange for a car to pick me up, Gavin.’
‘It’s on its way, guv.’ Creasey paused. ‘You are at Miss Sutton’s place, aren’t you?’ he enquired archly.
It was an open secret among the members of my team at Homicide and Serious Crime Command West that I was in a relationship with a shapely blonde named Gail Sutton, and was more likely to be in her bed than in my own.
‘Strangely enough, Gavin, I’m in my own flat.’
‘Oh, I’ll get on the air and divert them to your address, sir,’ said Creasey, sounding rather surprised. ‘I’ve alerted the principal actors and the supporting cast in this latest drama, and they’re on the way.’
‘Thank you, Gavin.’ The people he was talking about comprised Detective Inspector Kate Ebdon and Detective Sergeant Dave Poole, as well as the other members of my Murder Investigation Team. Dr Henry Mortlock, the Home Office pathologist, and Linda Mitchell, a senior forensic examiner, and her assistants, would also have been invited to the party. It was the standard turnout procedure and swung into action like a well-oiled machine.
The traffic unit car arrived five minutes later.
‘Good morning, sir. A lovely morning for it,’ said the driver, with an exuberance that I found quite nauseating.
‘Matter of opinion,’ I muttered, regretting that I’d been obliged to don a jacket and a tie, and was perspiring already.
The driver covered the fifteen miles from Surbiton to West Drayton in as many minutes, blue lights blazing and siren blaring, although neither seemed necessary at that time of the morning. Emerging somewhat shakily from the high-powered BMW, I concluded yet again that this near-maniacal driving was a deliberate ploy on the part of the Black Rats to test the nerves of CID officers. I shouldn’t really worry; the Met’s drivers are among the finest in the world. But I do worry. Only about my personal safety, though.
‘Good morning, sir. Mr Brock, isn’t it?’ Amazingly, the smart young lady inspector holding a clipboard and pen recognized me. I couldn’t recall ever having investigated a murder in West Drayton before and I didn’t know why she should have known me.
‘Yes, I’m DCI Brock.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the inspector, as she made a note on her clipboard. ‘DI Ebdon, DS Poole and Doctor Mortlock are here already. And Miss Mitchell and the evidence recovery unit are working in the house somewhere.’
Obviously lady incident officers were more wide awake at twenty minutes to two on a Sunday morning than were their male counterparts. We could use someone like her in the Department, and that prompted a thought.
‘Have you ever considered a transfer to the CID, Inspector?’ I asked.
‘Good God, no!’ exclaimed the inspector, as though I’d just made an indecent suggestion.
I was saved from further discussion on the subject by the approach of a youthful ind
ividual dressed in an expensive linen suit.
‘Morning, guv. I’m Tom Watson, the hat DI.’
When Watson described himself as ‘the hat DI’, he didn’t mean that he wore a hat; in fact he was bareheaded. HAT is yet another of the many acronyms to emerge from the Metropolitan Police ‘funny names and total confusion squad’ and indicated that he was a member of the Homicide Assessment Team. Its members comprise a select group of CID officers who patrol around the clock and are called to the scene of suspicious deaths by the local CID.
It is up to the HAT officer to decide whether or not a murder is of sufficient complexity to require an investigator from HSCC. Like me. But they’ve yet to do me the favour of deciding that the murders that occur when I’m next on the list could have been dealt with by the local detectives.
‘What’s the SP, Tom?’ I asked, culling a useful bit of shorthand from the racing fraternity, although to a CID officer it doesn’t mean ‘starting price’ but ‘what’s the score?’, or in English: ‘Be so good as to bring me up to date on what has occurred so far.’
‘It’s a funny one, guv,’ said Watson predictably.
‘Aren’t they all?’ I replied, hoping that one day someone would come up with a newer cliché with which to start a conversation about a murder.
‘A guy called Sidney Miller,’ Watson began, referring to his pocketbook, ‘put up a 999 call at eleven forty-five to say that he’d heard a woman screaming. He went outside and eventually found that it came from this house.’ He cocked a thumb of indication. ‘It belongs to a couple called Gregory. Miller’s house is next door,’ he added, pointing. ‘Going to investigate, Mr Miller discovered that the front door was ajar. Just inside, on the floor in the hall, he found Mrs Sharon Gregory, the occupant, lying on the floor, stark naked and trussed up with rope. She claimed that she’d been attacked by a burglar.’ He paused ominously. ‘Miller took a look around the house to make sure that the intruder was no longer there, and found that Mrs Gregory’s husband, Clifford, was dead in the couple’s bed in the master bedroom. First signs indicate that he was bludgeoned to death. But so far there’s no sign of the murder weapon. At least, it wasn’t anywhere near the body.’
‘Was Mrs Gregory attacked, Tom? Physically, I mean.’
‘It would appear not, apart from being tied up,’ said Watson, ‘but she’s still a bit shaken up.’
‘D’you reckon she’s fit to be interviewed?’
‘I think so. She had a couple of brandies to steady her nerves. You’ll find her upstairs in the second bedroom with a woman officer. Incidentally, the whole place has been trashed.’
‘Trashed?’
‘Every room, as far as I could see. The first officers on the scene thought that a rave party had been held here, but then they found the body.’
‘Have you seen Dave Poole, my sergeant, Tom?’
‘He’s in the master bedroom with Doctor Mortlock. And the body.’ Watson paused. ‘That’s a pretty smart skipper you’ve got there, guv. He got to grips with the job the minute he arrived. He certainly knows what he’s doing at a crime scene.’
‘Of course he does; I trained him. As a matter of fact, he’s the best sergeant I’ve ever had working with me,’ I said. ‘And he’s got a degree in English from the University of London.’
‘What’s he doing in the Job, then?’ asked Watson, raising his eyebrows.
‘He told me it’s what he always wanted to do,’ I replied.
‘Must be mad,’ commented Watson, appearing to take the view that anyone who had been to university would be insane not to seek better paid employment in a cushier sort of job.
Dave Poole is of Caribbean origin. His grandfather, a medical doctor, arrived in this country from Jamaica in the 1950s and set up general practice in Bethnal Green. Dave’s father is a chartered accountant, but Dave, describing the pursuit of a professional career as a tedious occupation, joined the Metropolitan Police. He often claimed, to the discomfort of those who worried about diversity, that it made him the black sheep of the family. And just to pile it on, he frequently referred to himself as a colour-sergeant when talking to the more pompous officers. Like our beloved commander.
‘Where’s this neighbour now; the one who found the body? Sidney Miller, did you say?’ I got the conversation back to the task in hand. ‘Is he still around, Tom?’
‘I sent him back to his own house,’ said Watson, ‘but I told him that you’d want to see him at some time. The guy’s obviously a key witness. Not to the murder, of course, but he’s the best we’ve got so far.’
‘Where’s DI Ebdon?’ I asked, but Watson didn’t have to reply.
‘G’day, guv.’ Right on cue, my Australian DI, Kate Ebdon, emerged from behind the Metrolamps that were illuminating the front of the house; not that I could see any reason for turning the crime scene into something akin to a son-et-lumière. Kate was attired in a set of white coveralls, a pair of overshoes and the sort of mob cap that made her look like an escapee from a TV hospital soap opera. She was joined by one of Linda Mitchell’s assistants who handed me a similar set of garments.
‘Come with me, Kate, and we’ll see what’s going on.’ I donned the coveralls, but refused point-blank to wear the mob cap. ‘I understand that Mrs Gregory’s upstairs in the second bedroom.’
‘Yes. It seems to be the only room that hasn’t been turned over.’
‘Turned over?’
‘Whoever this drongo was, he’s wrecked the place. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
I was gradually learning Australian slang – or Strian, as Kate sometimes called it – and gathered that the burglar to whom she was referring was a total idiot.
‘Yes, Tom Watson told me it had been well and truly trashed.’ On the way into the house, I stopped to examine the front door. There was a standard rim lock, but no sign of a forced entry. No splintered woodwork surrounded the lock area and there were no broken panes in the glass panels, one of which bore a Neighbourhood Watch sticker.
‘Looks as though it was ’loided, guv,’ said Kate, as she removed her mob cap and stuffed it in the pocket of her coveralls.
The form of felonious entry to which Kate referred was often used by spec thieves. Usually a credit card was inserted between the edge of the door and the jamb, enabling the latch to be pushed back. Providing the burglar struck lucky. These days most people were wise to it and had fitted a deadlocking cylinder night-latch. The Gregorys were no exception. I pushed at the tongue, but it moved easily.
‘You might be right, Kate,’ I said. ‘There’s a mortise lock, too, but neither of them has been engaged.’
‘Perhaps the intruder had a key,’ said Kate.
‘Surely it can’t have been that easy. It’s more likely that the intruder left the door open or, as you say, it was ’loided.’
‘Perhaps he left it open on his way out,’ said Kate, ‘but that doesn’t explain how he got in.’
Leaving the enigma of the unlocked door in the hope that it might be explained by Mrs Gregory, I started by looking around the hall. There were a couple of lengths of rope on the floor, presumably those with which Mrs Gregory had been tied up. Nearby was a wad of material that I imagined to be a gag that the killer had used to silence the dead man’s wife.
‘I hope the lab people can find something of use among that lot,’ I said, as Kate and I made our way upstairs.
Dr Henry Mortlock was in the act of packing the tools of his trade into his murder bag. Dave Poole was leaning against a wall, looking his usual chipper self, despite the fact that it was now two o’clock in the morning.
‘Whoever he was, guv, he certainly went through this room,’ said Dave.
I began a careful visual survey of the room. It was as Kate and Tom Watson had each said. The dressing-table drawers had been pulled out, their contents – mainly Mrs Gregory’s colourful underwear – thrown all over the place. The fitted wardrobes were wide open, a man’s suits and shirts and a woman’s dresses and trouser
suits strewn untidily about the room. An empty, open jewellery box lay on the floor near the bed.
In the bed was the body of a man, his head covered in blood.
‘While Doctor Mortlock tells me the tale, Dave, go next door and have a few words with Sidney Miller, the guy who found Mrs Gregory in the hall. See what he’s got to say. DI Watson will tell you which house is his.’
‘Right, guv.’ Dave made his way downstairs.
I turned to the pathologist. ‘Good morning, Henry.’
‘There’s nothing bloody good about it,’ muttered Mortlock. ‘Why the hell can’t people be murdered at a respectable hour?’
‘My sentiments exactly, Henry. Is there anything you can tell me at this stage?’
‘On a superficial examination it looks as though our friend here was bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument, Harry. I’ll be able to tell you more when I get him on the slab. It smells as though he was drunk, too. He reeks of whisky.’
‘Blended or malt?’ I could smell Scotch even from where I was standing.
‘Undoubtedly cheap blended,’ said Mortlock, making a point of deliberately ignoring my attempt at humour. ‘A supermarket’s own brand, I should think.’
‘When are you going to do the post-mortem?’
‘You chaps are always in such a terrible rush,’ complained Mortlock, ‘and I suppose you want it done ASAP. I’ll make a sacrifice and do it this afternoon. See you at about two o’clock. Usual place.’ His face took on a sour expression. ‘What a way to spend a Sunday. I should’ve been playing golf.’
‘Never mind, Henry,’ I said. ‘You’ll be making holes instead of filling them.’
‘Very funny,’ said Mortlock, and with that pithy rejoinder he departed, whistling a few bars from Handel’s ‘Dead March’ from Saul.