"Mmm, no problem. The roads were quiet." "I'm so glad we could get away for Christmas, Charles. You deserved a break, after what happened last year." She lowered her voice again. "Even if we did have separate bedrooms."
"That won't happen again," I growled. We chatted aimlessly for another twenty minutes. I'm not good at small talk, but this was no effort at all. I couldn't believe it was me saying these things, but it felt natural, comfortable. This was a second chance for both of us, and we were taking things very slowly, but it felt good.
We said our goodbyes. I hoped she would enjoy her posh meal and she told me to be careful. I watched the late news and went to bed, but I knew I wouldn't sleep. Too many people had reminded me about last Christmas, and I didn't need any reminding at all. I lay on my back, gazing at the ceiling, thinking about Annabelle, churning over all those emotions, imagined conversations and secret signals that I thought I'd grown out of at about the time my acne went away. It didn't work. A car turned into the end of the street. A shaft of light through a chink in the curtains swung slowly across the wall and over the ceiling, as if searching for something. I half hoped it was coming for me, but I heard a door slam several houses away, and the screech of a garage door that desperately needed a squirt of garage door oil. I sank back into my pillows and gave way to last year's memories.
Susan Crabtree threw herself off the multi-storey car park on the eve of the anniversary of the birth of Christ. No one saw her jump, so all we had was a dead body on the pavement, last week's paper blown against her leggings and a ribbon of blood gravitating towards the drain. I found a purse and a bunch of keys in the pocket of her anorak, and saw that she had brown eyes and a polyp near the corner of her mouth. A pair of shattered spectacles lay nearby and their indentations were visible on the sides of her nose. I couldn't be sure that she hadn't been hit by a car or even shot, so I checked for tell-tale marks as well as I knew how. We needed a head start on the pathologist, if possible. I gently lifted a strand of hair away from her ear and noticed that it wasn't pierced. One thing she wasn't was a fashion victim.
The doctor who pronounced her dead gave her a more thorough examination and concluded that she'd come from the fifth floor, the short way. The next question was all mine: was she pushed or did she jump? An ambulance took her to the hospital mortuary and fifteen minutes later myself and a uniformed PC were unlocking the door of Susan's bed sit He found the bundle, but from its shape we both had a good idea what might be in it. It was wrapped in newspaper and tightly bound with Sellotape, so it looked like something from an Egyptian tomb, except that they didn't have the Guardian in those days. I found a pair of scissors in a drawer next to the sink and the PC placed the bundle on a chest of drawers under the window, where the light was best. I started snipping. I get all the dirty jobs.
Inside, we found a tiny baby, wearing a blue romper suit with white and pink roses appliqued to it. Blue for a boy. According to the dictionary infanticide is any killing of a child. In legal terms it means the killing of a baby while suffering from post-natal depression.
Either way, it's a bummer.
I spent that Christmas Day morning in the post-mortem room of Heckley General Hospital. It's in the basement, adjoining the mortuary, and feels like you are deep in some nuclear bomb-proof bunker. All stainless steel, dripping taps and cold light. I took a chair to the farthest corner and settled down, praying that the professor wouldn't say: "This is interesting, Charlie. Come and have a look."
He didn't. I listened to his litany and said my amens silently, in my head. Miss Crabtree's injuries were massive, consistent with a fall from a high building, but death was probably instant, from the fractured skull. The shape of the fracture matched the flatness of the pavement. She was about twenty, and appeared to have been in good health. No operation scars other than a not fully healed episiotomy.
The prof looked up at me after he'd droned that piece of information into the tape recorder and explained: "She's given birth in the last three weeks."
He opened her up, examined her organs and took his samples, to go away for analysis. Eventually he stepped back, saying: "I think that's all we need," and his assistant took over to do the tidying up.
I said: "Does post-natal depression leave any signs, Professor?"
"I'm afraid not, Inspector," he replied.
He changed his gloves and overalls and I saw him sneak a look at the clock. It was eleven forty-five, and every kitchen in the country would be warming to the smell of roasting turkey. I wondered who did the carving at their house.
"Right," he said, businesslike. "Let's have the other one."
This was the one I wasn't looking forward to. I swivelled the chair the wrong way round and sat with my chin on my folded arms, eyes focused on one perfect white tile on the far wall. The hard back of the plastic chair cut off the circulation to my hands and they became cramped, but it helped close my mind to an image that I didn't want to admit.
I worry about pathologists. More so about their assistants. I suppose they drift into their jobs, like most of us; but they could always drift out of them again, if they wanted, and they rarely do. Is an executioner just a serial killer who's learned how to avoid breaking the law? If so, what sort of a pervert does that make the pathologist?
I've always suspected these two were a pair of callous bastards, so it was a surprise when the Professor said: "It's Christmas Day, and I need a drink. Let's have a snifter in the office, Charlie." He'd done his job and we were walking along the corridor, away from the lab, the clatter of the heels of his assistant's shoes echoing off the antiseptic walls.
The Professor only had two heavy tumblers, hidden at the back of a filing cabinet, so he found a disposable cup for himself. It was Johnny Walker. I only had the one, but between us we drank nearly half the bottle before we wished each other a sardonic Merry Christmas and went our separate ways.
I'd telephoned Annabelle to suggest she put the turkey on a low light and had gone round to see Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree, Susan's parents.
Someone else, thank God, had broken the news to them the night before.
Mrs. Crabtree made me a cup of tea and sat me in an easy chair with antimacassars on the back and arms. "Would you like a piece of cake?" she asked in a soft girlish voice.
"No thank you," I said. "Come and sit down. Don't bother about me."
She took a place on the settee, next to her husband. They were a few years older than me, so it looked as if they'd had Susan, their only child, when they were well past the first flush. That must have made her extra special to them.
After a long silence I told them about a note we'd found at the flat, and the pathologist's preliminary conclusions Susan had almost certainly suffocated the baby and taken her own life while suffering from post-natal depression There would be an inquest, but there was no reason why the coroner couldn't release the bodies immediately for a funeral.
Mrs. Crabtree knew all about post-natal depression. She'd suffered badly from it herself after Susan's birth. "Didn't I William?" she'd prompted, turning to her husband. Ashen face, he nodded confirmation.
There was an eloquence in his gesture that spoke volumes about his own ordeal.
I glanced round the room. It was stuffed with bric-a-brac, like a folk museum with too many exhibits and not enough space. Every picture frame was perfectly aligned with its neighbour, every polished surface shone like a millpond on a summer's evening. It was a SOCO's nightmare. I noticed that the feet of the three-piece suite stood in little cups so they wouldn't ruffle the pile, and wondered if I should have removed my shoes when I came in.
Mrs. Crabtree had conquered her problem with the only therapy available to her at the time housework and poor old William had suffered in silence. I sat with my cup and saucer on my knee because I didn't know where else to put it, until Mrs. Crabtree noticed and found me a little tray that clipped on the arm of the chair. She poured me a refill.
I asked a few questions about their daughter. S
he'd had a boyfriend, obviously, but they'd never met him. She left home shortly after becoming pregnant, because she wanted to be independent.
"Young people do, these days, don't they," Mrs. Crabtree said.
I nodded agreement and wondered how welcome a toddler would have been in that temple to hygiene. I didn't over-do the questions. There was no other crime to solve, and it's not my job to apportion blame or spread guilt. Three teas and an hour later I started to make leaving noises, but I needed to use the bathroom first. In there, everything that didn't hold water wore a fluffy cover, and when I washed my hands I noticed that the plug for the sink rested in a special little holder.
Hey, that's a good idea, I thought, for a millisecond, and promptly changed my mind. There was a similar one for the bath plug.
Driving back to Annabelle's I composed my report in my head, for typing later. Typing and driving don't go together. I decided to say that Mrs. Crabtree suffered from OTD — Obsessive Tidiness Disorder. I liked the sound of that, and had my first smile of the day. In this job you have to grab one when you can.
That was last Christmas. It was a good point to come out of the daydream, thinking about Annabelle. It was early, still fully dark outside, but I decided to get up. A shower and some breakfast would do me more good than a last desperate hour of snatched sleep. I don't need much sleep.
First bombshell of the day came when I made my customary visit to Gilbert's office. All the troops have been deployed and most villains are still in bed. That's when we relax for a few minutes with a cup in front of us and do the real policing.
"Have you heard about bloody Makinson?" Gilbert growled. "Er, no."
"How much do you know about the Dr. Jordan job?" "Next to nothing.
Why, what's Makinson done?" "Humph!" he snorted, tossing his head.
"Only gone and booked himself some leave to celebrate Hogmanay, hasn't he? Thought he'd grab a couple of days skiing in the Cairngorms while he was at it. Region have been on, asking what you're up to. Any chance of you looking after things while he slides up and down the side of a hill wearing a pink suit and make-up on his face?"
"Good for him," I said. "His priorities are right. I wish I could be more like that."
"It doesn't catch villains, though, does it?" "It probably does. So what's the state of play?" "They know who did it, apparently, but he's gone away for a few days, too. If he's not done a complete bunk they're expecting him back anytime, so it's just a matter of keeping an eye on his usual address and picking him up. Can you take over tomorrow morning's meeting at HQ? Young Newley and Dave Sparkington are in the team, so they'll fill you in if you can't wait that long."
"No problem," I said. "I've already had a bet with Sparky that they'd have to call me in to catch him."
"Then it looks as if you won the bet. Now, how are you getting on with this rape job?"
The period after Christmas is harvest time for burglars. Garden sheds, bedrooms and hallways are bristling with new bicycles, power tools and electronic gadgetry. All desirable and highly portable. We'd raided three shops that claimed to 'Buy 'n' Sell Owt' and two of our cells were now stuffed with several thousand pounds worth of goodies, all still under guarantee.
"He said it was an unwanted present," was the excuse of the week.
"What an ungrateful little sod he must be," we'd respond followed by,
"Get your coat." There must be hundreds of fifteen-year-olds in Heckley who didn't really want another 21-speed, chrome moly-framed Muddy Fox mountain bike. Just think what they could buy with the thirty quid they'd get for it at the hock shop.
We contacted grandparents and favourite aunties and asked them to find the receipts and anything else that might bear a serial number, and a few lucky people had their presents returned. Some were still gift-wrapped The rape wasn't so straightforward. Maggie took Janet Saunders on a tour of the town's hostelries without finding Darryl. They had a quick look in the Tap and Spile on two evenings but avoided the landlord. We couldn't be sure how pally he was with Darryl and didn't want him scaring off. We dabble in something called sector policing. Certain officers are allocated areas of town and they try to familia rise themselves with the more visible characters who live there. Jeff Caton, one of my DCs, knew the landlord of the Tap! and gave him a reasonable character reference. He'd once alerted us to a drugs dealer who was using the pub to do business but was himself suspected of selling consignments of booze brought in cheaply from the Continent.
That's the sort of villainy I can live with. I wasn't sure whether he'd finger one of his better customers for a rape, but in the absence of any other line of action decided that in the next day or two I'd better have a word with him myself.
At ten to nine on the morning of the thirtieth of December I ran up the front steps of City HQ and asked the WPC manning personning? the front desk to direct me to the Dr. Jordan incident room. This was the big day, when I took over the enquiry. Walking down the corridor I contemplated Field Marshal Montgomery's pep talk to the Eighth Army prior to the battle of El Alamein. That should rouse them I thought.
Or should I make it Henry V's Agincourt speech? Then again, if I gave them a compilation from the two they might not recognise the sources.
At the door to the incident room I paused and looked at my watch, other hand poised over the handle. I was four minutes early, but that was how I did business and they'd better get used to it. I turned the handle and marched in.
Sparky was sprawled in a chair, his feet on another talking to Nigel who was sitting nearby. The only two others in the room were engrossed in the Sun crossword "Good morning," I said.
"Morning, sir," said the two City HQ detectives, brushing the tabloid to one side. 6 "Morning, Boss," Nigel added. Sparky swung his legs to the floor and nodded.
"So, where's everybody else?" I demanded.
"We're it," Nigel told me.
"Four of you?"
"There's another four on observations, sir," one of the City DCs interjected. "Well, two on duty and two off'
Nigel did the introductions. I knew them by sight but had never worked with either. We shook hands and I gave them the bit about not calling me sir. Formalities over, I asked Nigel to fill me in with the story so far.
The last known person to see the doctor alive was a junky known as Ged Skinner. There was an entry in the doc's diary giving Skinner an appointment at six thirty p.m." about two hours before the estimated time of death. He had a drugs-related record nearly as long as the Duchess of York's last bank statement and DCI Makinson was convinced that he'd done the deed. Motive: possibly theft of a prescription pad.
Or maybe just sheer wickedness because the doc wouldn't prescribe. I had to admit that it sounded likely.
"The trouble is," Nigel continued, 'he's done a bunk. According to his common law wife he'd arranged a ride in a lorry down to London, straight after his appointment with the doctor. She said he had friends there that he was close to, someone he'd grown up with in care, and he tried to see them every Christmas. He'd be gone for about a week, definitely back for the New Year, she reckons, if he hasn't run away completely. We've alerted the Met, but it's like looking for a needle in a needle stack."
"Do we know for sure why he was seeing the doctor?" "Yes. He was on methadone. It's all in the doc's records."
"So maybe he went round expecting to collect a week's supply."
"That's what we thought." "And the doc wouldn't play ball?" "Could be."
When someone is on a heroin withdrawal programme they are often prescribed methadone as an alternative, to wean them through the bad times. Some people swear by it, others claim it is more pernicious than the heroin. Many junkies prefer it, as the high is more controllable and the quality is assured. Normal treatment is three doses a day, and the doctors often only issue a prescription for one day at a time. Ged Skinner was going away for a week. Maybe he got stroppy.
"Are these the reports?" I asked, pointing to a foot-high pile of papers.
&nb
sp; They nodded.
"Great," I sighed. "So, where does Mr. Skinner normally live?"
"In a squat in the Nansens," one of the DCs told me.
The Nansens were a quarter-mile square block of terraced houses built at the turn of the century to house mill workers and named after the great Norwegian explorer and scientist. If only he could see them now.
"How many others live there?"
"About six adults, plus kids and dogs."
I grimaced and nodded. "Have you two been on all night?" I asked the City DCs.
They had.
"Right, then get yourselves off home, after you've told the others not to move if Skinner comes back unless they have some back-up. And to let me know. I wouldn't mind being there when we lift him. OK?"
When they'd gone Sparky said: "I think they prefer working for you rather than Makinson."
"Mr. Makinson has his ways," I replied, 'and I have mine. Sometimes I think I could learn a few things from him."
Nigel started pulling his coat on. "Short meeting," he said. "We can't do anything until he shows. Do you need me?"
"Yes. Do you have a warrant to search the squat when Skinner shows?"
"Er, no idea. You can do it, can't you?"
"If we arrest him. What else are you on with?"
"The Sylvan Fields burglaries. A few complications need sorting."
"Fair enough. I'll have a couple of hours here reading the file, see if anything jumps out at me. What're you doing, Dave?"
"Three or four scrotes to interview, see how well their stories have been rehearsed. Some stolen property to identify, and the dreaded paperwork, of course."
"In other words, not much," I said. "In that case, meet me in the Tap and Spile at lunchtime, if you can. I think it's time to have a word with the landlord."
"About the rape?"
"Yeah."
"What time?"
I glanced at my watch and at the pile of reports. They'd grown since my last look. "Oh, er, let's say twelve thirty eh?"
"Right."
Sparky was following Nigel out through the door when I shouted:
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