***
D.S. Miller and a couple of uniforms pulled up in the quiet, suburban side street in which the librarian with the fondness for dressing like a hippy’s laundry bag made her home. This wasn’t an arrest. Not yet. They were merely bringing the woman in to assist with enquiries, as the cliché has it. All the same, Miller was grateful to be accompanied by the rather burly constables. She sighed. She liked men in uniform as much as the next woman but, she reflected, it had been an error on her part to join a profession where there were so many of them around. There was no chance at all that anything could ever happen. That would be unprofessional. Nice, though. But unprofessional.
They went through the garden gate and up the path. The house, like the rest in the street at this hour, was in darkness. Poor cow, thought Miller, about to get a rude awakening. The neighbours too, probably. Their net curtains would be twitching any minute now...
She nodded to one of the hunky constables. He nodded back and pressed the doorbell.
“Hold up,” said the second. He stepped up and pushed the front door, which he had noticed had been ajar.
“Curiouser and um...” Miller couldn’t complete the quotation. The men looked to her for cues. She crossed the threshold. They followed her indoors.
***
Cassidy stood with the kitchen door cracked open, keeping an eye on the corridor. Anyone coming along would put the light on, surely? If not, if they were someone who knew the terrain after living here for decades (Mr or Mrs Box, for example) then the telltale creaks of the elderly floorboards would serve as an early warning system. Anfred was trying keys in locks and not making much progress.
“Come on!” Cassidy called over her shoulder, perhaps a little too loudly. “Or I’m going up to bed.” She thought for a second and then added so there would be no confusion, “Alone!”
“You must have patience,” Anfred scolded, turning a key in the pantry door. “Tadaa!”
He opened the door with ease, revealing a small, square space lined with shelves laden with large containers of tomato sauce, sugar and cooking oil. Cassidy abandoned her post to have a closer look.
“What’s that?” She pointed at a large blue tub standing on the pantry floor.
“What’s what?” Anfred peered at the label. “It looks like ‘freeze-dried mice’.” He straightened up. “No wonder Mrs Box has yet to receive any Michelin stars.”
“You’re kidding me!” Cassidy batted his arm with the back of her hand. “It’s probably rice.”
“See for yourself,” he invited but Cassidy’s attention had been grabbed by something else.
“Hey,” she pulled a bottle from a crate, “this is your stuff, isn’t it?”
Anfred snatched the bottle and replaced it in the crate. “I don’t think it is a good idea,” he said. He tried to pull her away so he could close the pantry door but Cassidy stood her ground. She asked him what was wrong with it.
“Other, finer quality beers are available,” he said in the serious tones of a television announcer.
“Great sales rep you must be.”
He looked downcast. Embarrassed. “I just don’t want you to have a lower opinion of me,” he muttered.
“That’s not possible,” Cassidy laughed. “Now,” she grabbed two bottles from the crate, “are we drinking or what?”
Anfred accepted the bottle she pushed towards his chest. “Sure,” he said with a total lack of enthusiasm. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
They prised off the caps and knocked the necks of their bottles together.
“Down the hatch,” said Cassidy, raising her bottle in toast.
“Skål,” murmured Anfred. He did not mirror her gesture. He watched her as she raised the bottle to her mouth; his lower lip curled inwards - Suddenly, the kitchen was flooded with light and the buzz of fluorescent tubes warming up.
Mrs Box was behind them, armed with a mop which she brandished like a pikestaff.
“What the blinking flip are you doing here?”
Cassidy and Anfred turned to face her.
“Busted,” said Cassidy from the side of her mouth. An insistent jab from the mop caused them to raise their hands and bottles of Ragnarök slowly above their heads.
Arrest
One of the uniforms stood on the doorstep of the librarian’s house as sentry. The other was in the hallway, throwing up the pie and chips he’d eaten before coming on duty into his helmet. In the living room, which, she reflected, was darkly ironic, given the circumstances, D.S. Miller was making a video call to D.I. Brough, who was heading to the crime scene as they spoke.
“No formal i.d. of the victim, of course, sir,” Miller was saying, scanning the room with the camera on her smart phone, giving him shadowy glimpses of blood and gore. Some crazy fucker had turned the librarian’s front room into an abattoir. Brough was tapping his foot nervously in the back of the car, wishing the driver wasn’t so bloody law-abiding. The situation was getting bigger - too big - and he feared Serious Crimes would be swarming all over it like flies at a cowpat. How much longer could he keep them at bay? Should he even be keeping them at a distance? Shouldn’t he just hold up his hands and admit he needed their help? And how come they hadn’t snatched it away from him already? They were setting him up; he was sure of it. They wanted him to fail. You didn’t need to be Inspector fucking Morse to work that out. Brough dragged his hand down his face, momentarily stretching his eyes and cheeks into a mask of despair. A call to Dad now seemed inevitable. But not just yet. He directed his full attention to the horror show at hand. Miller was not devoid of fortitude, he had to give her that.
“But it’s her all right,” Miller went on. “Far as I can tell... Haven’t counted all the pieces yet, sir. Haven’t found all the pieces. Sick bastard, sir. Seems to have chopped her up and used the bits as bookends. Place is awash, sir. Blood. Chunks. Bloody chunks. And there’s a smell, sir-“
He interrupted, just as the camera revealed a row of books kept upright by the librarian’s hands and forearms, severed at the elbow. “Smell of blood, do you mean?” he asked.
“No, sir.” The image on screen swerved dizzyingly fast and Miller’s face filled the frame. “Not blood, sir. Beer.”
Somewhere behind D.S. Miller, Brough could hear the constable throwing up again.
***
“I want answers!” Mrs Box waved the mop head a little closer to their faces. Cassidy caught a whiff of its pungent, musty strands and screwed her face up accordingly.
“That’s stale,” she complained.
“And there’s a mop at the end of it,” added Anfred, enjoying himself as usual.
“I want answers!” the mop-wielding landlady demanded a second time.
“So, ask some questions,” Anfred was as casual as ever. His customary smirk played at the corner of his mouth.
“Ssh!” Cassidy hissed, from the corner of hers. “Don’t antagonise her. She’ll wipe the floor with you.”
“That’s good,” Anfred nodded in approval of her quip. “I like that.”
“I have my moments,” Cassidy grinned.
At the other end of the mop, Mrs Box stamped her foot impatiently. These two jokers must be drunk already. “Put the bottles down,” she commanded. “Move away from the bottles.”
“Hey,” Anfred’s eyes flashed angrily, “Back off with the mop.”
Mrs Box didn’t flinch. She met his gaze and in a steady voice repeated her instruction. Cassidy wasn’t laughing any more. She began to lower her arms.
“Maybe we should-”
“Shut your gob, Yankee!” Mrs Box finally dispensed with any pretence at customer service.
“Hey!” Cassidy objected but Mrs Box wouldn’t let her say anything further.
“I caught you red-headed, raiding my pantry. I should
be on the phone to the police.”
“You’re bluffing,” Anfred scoffed. He turned to Cassidy. “She’s bluffing.”
“She’s not bluffing,” Mrs Box informed the Yankee. She turned to the other foreigner. “I’m not bluffing,” she told him.
“She won’t call the cops,” Anfred said to Cassidy. He turned to Mrs Box, facing her along the length of wood as though lining her up in his sights. “You won’t call the cops,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I’d be looking at what’s inside that refrigerator over there before I made any telephone calls.” He jerked his head in the direction of the appliance in question. Mrs Box didn’t break eye contact.
“Pah!” she said.
“They would ask you all sorts of uncomfortable questions, I am certain.”
“Now you’re the one bluffing.”
Anfred feigned surprise. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know what?”
“About the-” he made a two-note whistle, “- in the fridge.”
“What’s -?” said Cassidy, repeating the whistle.
“There is no-” Mrs Box whistled too.
“This is crazy!” Cassidy lowered her arms and put the beer on the floor. She held out her hands to Mrs Box as though approaching a strange dog. “Listen,” she spoke as softly and steadily as she could, “we’re very sorry for sneaking around in the middle of the night and all. We’ll put the beer back and no harm done, okay?”
“Says you,” said Mrs Box with a snort.
“We’re sorry!” Cassidy nudged Anfred’s side, gesturing with her head for him to put his bottle down. He, however, had other ideas. With a sudden flick, he thrust the bottle forward, showering the landlady with beer.
“Come on!” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Cassidy by the wrist and pulled her across the room to the exit. He was laughing like a maniac on holiday. Cassidy glanced back to see Mrs Box wiping her face with the head of the mop.
They tore through the guest house and up to Cassidy’s room, fugitives from the swabbing Mrs Box thought they deserved. Cassidy fumbled the door open. Anfred slammed it behind them and leant against it.
“Un- be -fu-” Cassidy began, shaking her head in disbelief.
“It’s a laugh!”
She rounded on him. “You realise I can’t stay here after that? How can I show my face?”
Anfred pouted, unconcerned. “There’s other places.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” she agreed. She pulled out her holdall from under the bed and dropped it onto the bedspread. “And I won’t tell you where I’m moving to. You’re too much trouble.”
“I shall stick to you like glue!” he laughed, throwing himself onto the bed and making the holdall bounce. He watched as she snatched items of clothing from the chest of drawers.
“You’re a fucking weirdo,” she scowled, ramming the clothes into the bag, “Anybody ever tell you that?”
He grinned. “It’s never come up before.”
“I bet.”
She grabbed shirts and sweaters from the fixed hangers in the wardrobe. They too were stuffed haphazardly into the holdall.
Anfred sat up, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. “You’re leaving now?”
She pulled a face that suggested he was a fucking idiot. “No time like the present.” She nipped into the en suite to retrieve her toiletries.
“It’s too late to check in anywhere now,” he called after her.
“Oh, I don’t know; I’ll flash some cash,” she called back. She came out of the bathroom, cradling bottles of shampoo, toothpaste and so on, in her arms, to find him removing clothes from the bag. “The fuck are you doing?” she yelled, dropping the toiletries onto the bed. She began to put the clothes back in only to have him take them out again.
“For fuck’s sake!” she growled, snatching the bag from his reach.
“Reconsider!” he said, seriously, all amusement gone from his expression.
“Take your hands off my underwear,” she responded in equal seriousness. Anfred looked at his hands, which were clutching several pairs of panties. He let them drop onto the bed and stood up.
A loud pounding on the door startled them both. Any more determined and the door would have crashed to the floor or exploded into splinters.
“Now what?” Cassidy wailed. She crossed to the door and, steeling herself, opened it.
A large shadow fell across her. She had to crane her neck upwards in order to come face to face with Mr Bertie Box.
***
Brough stood in the incident room, facing his wall of notes and pictures. He unpinned the photograph of the librarian and moved it from the row of suspects and likely malefactors and found a space for it next to the pictures of the homeless man, the real ale enthusiast and the couple with the whisk.
What linked them - if indeed there was a link and this was not the handiwork of an outbreak of maniacs?
There was the beer. The bottle in the empty room had been Norwegian but those taken from Dennis Morgan’s ocular sockets had been English and Australian. The Norwegian was in beer, wasn’t he? Meaning it was his job. So, the beer and the Norwegian... Brough was still waiting to hear back from Interpol about that Norwegian.
The book, too, was from that part of the world, wasn’t it? Or at least its subject matter was. An old and priceless book of Norse myths. Was it significant? Unlike the beer, the book hadn’t just been to hand. The killer had gone to some trouble to get hold of that book. Brough remembered something in Bertie Box’s file. He was into that kind of thing, wasn’t he? Antiquities, local history... It was believed the book had come from a local monastery or something and had once been kept in the museum where Bertie had worked...
And then that poor cow of a librarian. Butchered into bookends. If it was some kind of sick joke, did that mean the other killings were too? If so, the killer was trying to say something. But what?
Brough rubbed his face with both hands. Perhaps he could send Dobley out for coffee? He decided against it. He didn’t want to encourage the man’s transformation into a fawning lapdog.
An unpleasant incident at the laboratory had unsettled him. Brough had gone there to speak to the pathologist. So far nothing incriminating had been discovered on any of the victims. No stray hair. No prints. No DNA. But when he’d got there, he found the white-coated, curly-haired young man already engaged in conversation with that wanker Stevens from Serious Crimes.
What kind of name was that for a division? Serious Crimes! What were all the rest? Trivial crimes? Silly crimes?
“Here he is, the main man.” Stevens twitched his moustache ironically as Brough approached. “Come to see if you can dig up what’s left of his career.”
Brough ignored him. He introduced himself to the pathologist, a muscular chap whose tan was offset to good advantage by the whiteness of his lab coat. He said his name was Alastair and was under the impression he had seen Brough running in the park the other day.
“Oh, you run?”
“Off and on,” Alastair shook Brough’s hand, squeezing firmly. “More of a gym bunny, me.”
“Oh,” Brough squeezed back, not to be outdone. “Perhaps I can spot you sometime.”
“Jesus, ladies,” Stevens threw up his hands, “Get a room. Or better still, I’ll leave you to it and you can bum each other on a table.”
Brough jumped back from the pathologist as though electrocuted. Stevens laughed then tipped his head towards the exit. “A word?”
Brough followed him out into the corridor, which was tiled in a dark, institutional green. Stevens leaned his hand against the tiles and put the other hand in his trouser pocket.
“Thought you would have given up by now.” The moustache curled upwards, revealing one of Stevens’s canine teeth.
&
nbsp; “I manage,” Brough met his gaze. “Glad of the extra manpower, of course.”
“Give me the case.”
“I will not.” Brough jutted his chin, proudly. “Back off.”
Stevens drew himself to his full height. He was a head taller than the arrogant twerp who was trying to stare him out. He picked at that same canine tooth with a fingernail then wiped his finger on Brough’s smart jacket.
“You’re not wanted here, mate. Nobody wants you here. Nobody wants you anywhere.”
Brough seized the finger and pushed it away. “I’m not going anywhere. And I prefer to work alone.”
“That’s all right then, seeing how nobody wants you.” Stevens gave Brough a last look of appraisal and made a face that suggested he would rather be looking at a tower of shit. He spat one last word in Brough’s face before sauntering along the corridor.
“Grass.”
Brough maintained his composure until Stevens was gone. Then he allowed himself a brief shudder. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then, having opened them again of course, went back in to speak with the pathologist.
He found it difficult to take in what this overly friendly fellow was telling him and was glad of the copy of the report the pathologist provided on a memory stick. Something was said about lunch or a coffee or something. Brough said he would call. He got out of there. Stevens had rattled him more than he had at first realised.
Grass.
Now, hours later, he kept looking over his shoulder at the telephone on the table. Should he make the call? Not to the pathologist. That wasn’t going to happen. He glanced at the clock. It was very late; Dad wouldn’t be pleased to be disturbed at this hour, even though the old man was a notorious insomniac - notorious for hardly ever speaking about anything else. His lack of sleep tended to increase the capacity for it in others. No; Brough was glad the clock made the decision for him. He would not be calling his father. Tomorrow, maybe. It wasn’t that much of a reprieve. A stay of execution, really. Running to Daddy - how pathetic! Twice in one career. But, you never knew, perhaps there would be a breakthrough in the case in the next few hours and he’d have something positive to tell his Dad at last.
Blood & Breakfast, West Midlands Noir Page 12