Rock, Paper, Scissors

by B Baskerville

  “Do you recognise this man?” Cooper showed her a photo of Omar that Tennessee had sent over from his place of work. It showed Omar in a shirt and tie, a wide smile and eyes that crinkled in the corners. It was a far cry from how Cooper had last seen him.

  She shook her head. “No. Is that him? The man who was attacked?”

  “Yes,” said Cooper. “I’d like to talk to your other staff, see if they recognise him, or have seen or heard anything suspicious around here.”

  She pulled on a gilet and tidied her desk. “Follow me,” she beamed, beckoning Cooper towards an indoor enclosure labelled Puppy Playroom, “hopefully someone can help. Just awful having something like that happen around here. I hope you catch them. Hope he gets what’s coming to him. Okay, watch your feet. The young ones aren’t toilet trained. The dogs I mean, not the staff.” She sniggered to herself. “Oh, hello Archibald. This is Archibald our German shepherd pup. And little Cookie the Lab, and oh, isn’t Buddy the cutest pug you’ve ever seen?”

  Cooper found herself surrounded by eight to ten puppies all scrambling up her jeans and sniffing at her boots.

  “I’ll go find Leslie, he was working all last week, and Beth as well, our work experience girl. Perhaps they can help you generate a lead. Pardon the pun. Ha!”

  She trotted off, and Cooper was certain that if the woman had a tail, it would be wagging.

  - Chapter 14 -

  Keaton proudly held up three brown paper bags as she sauntered into the lobby of HQ. The unmistakable aroma of a McDonald’s takeaway floated over to Cooper’s nostrils.

  “Diet of champions,” Keaton said with a grin.

  “Darts champions, maybe.”

  “Oh?” Keaton forged a look of mock insult. “So you’ll not want any? More for me and Tennessee in that case.”

  Cooper laughed and took a bag from Keaton. “Nice try.” She opened it up and had a handful of soggy fries in her mouth before they’d even reached the lifts.

  “Six o’clock,” said Keaton and Cooper spun a one-eighty to look back at the glass doors. Detectives Neil Fuller, Sam Sutherland and Oliver Martin were escorting a man into the building. Cooper recognised him as Aaron Quinn.

  “That’s Macey Gallagher’s boyfriend,” she explained to Keaton, her eyes never moving from Quinn. “Tennessee and I thought he was a bit twitchy when we went to see him.”

  Quinn’s jogging pants were once again halfway down his backside and his cream coloured hoodie was speckled with yellow stains. Curry most likely. His face had the sheen of someone who hadn’t washed so far today and his stubble was coming through in patches.

  “Fuller,” Cooper called. Neil Fuller broke away from the group and instructed Sutherland to get the young man into a cell until an interview suite became available. “What’s going on?”

  Fuller blew his nose on a tissue and looked to his left for a moment. Cooper wondered if he was considering telling her to mind her own business.

  “I stopped by his flat with Sutherland. We were asking some routine questions, you know, following up where you left off, and we spot a baseball bat hidden behind his sofa. Not a big deal I thought at first; he’s a sporty kid, might be on the university team, or maybe he wants it in case his flat gets broken into, but when we asked him about it, he freaked out. Started demanding a lawyer.”

  “That’s a bit of a red flag.” Cooper’s gaze flicked back to Quinn; he had dark circles under his eyes and was demanding someone call his mother.

  “Exactly. So we brought him in and asked forensics to take a closer look at the bat and his place.”

  “Christ,” said Keaton, before taking a large bite out of her burger and getting mayonnaise all over her chin.

  Cooper shook her head. “All those posters. All the canvassing. He was the one really pushing the search for her.”

  “Aye, well, he wouldn’t be the first guilty party to play the role of concerned lover. We’ll see what the labs come back with.” Fuller shrugged and walked away.

  Cooper’s heart was heavy as she pressed the button on the lift to take her to CID. She didn’t like Quinn, didn’t trust him, but she hoped he hadn’t killed his girlfriend. She was still hoping Macey was alive somewhere.

  Tennessee must have smelled the McDonald’s coming because he was at the lift waiting for it to open. “Sweet,” he said, taking a bag and tucking in without pausing for breath.

  Cooper made space on one of the desks in the incident room and the three spread out their feast, sharing chicken nuggets between bites of burgers.

  “Right.” Cooper clapped her hands together when they had finished. “Tennessee, clear the table, and Keaton, you’re up first. What you got?”

  Tennessee crunched the rubbish into a tiny ball while Keaton opened her notepad. “Not a lot, to be fair. Door-to-doors are still ongoing. Seeing as we have no witnesses, I figure the attack happened in the middle of the night. I don’t think he was lured to the park and then hit with a surprise assault because Omar was missing for a few days prior to his attack. So, I figure he was either staying with someone or was being held by someone during that time.”

  “That’s what I thought,” confirmed Cooper. “But we don’t know if he was brought to the park then attacked, or if the attack occurred elsewhere and he was dumped in the park. Hong’s taken soil samples to assess the blood content around where Omar was found. If the content’s high, it’s likely the attack occurred in the park. How are the door-to-doors coming along so far?”

  “We started on the side of the park where the carpark is. Around Clarks Terrace and Weetslade Crescent.”

  “Good shout.”

  “But no one has anything for us so far. A few of the older residents have pointed the finger at each other. Baseless, of course. Number twelve leaves his wheelie bin out so he’s obviously an axe murderer, and number thirty-two’s conifers cast a shadow into number thirty-four’s garden so she’s worse than Hitler.”

  “Traffic cams?”

  “Well, as you can imagine, the roundabout on the A189 is stupidly busy. Always has been. But I’ve started with cars exiting the roundabout for Great Lime Road between one and four a.m. We can extend the time frame if nothing comes from what I have so far. Only three cars took that exit: a red Vauxhall Astra, a dark green Honda Civic, and a black Nissan Qashqai. I have the names and addresses of the registered owners and can give them a visit.”

  “Good start, Paula. Jack?”

  Tennessee sat up straight in his chair. “I have footage of him getting off the Metro at Byker at eleven p.m. on Tuesday and heading towards his home. However, none of his neighbours can recall hearing him come home, including a busy-body who lives next door on the left and seems to know everyone’s comings and goings. According to her, Omar Ali stuck to quite a rigid schedule. Left for work at seven forty-five on the dot and returned between six and six thirty each day.”

  “This neighbour, did you get a stalker vibe at all.”

  “She’s like ninety years old. She’s not stalking anyone and certainly too frail to do what was done to Omar. She’s just bored.”

  Cooper wiped the residual grease from her fingertips with a serviette and mulled it over. “He broke his schedule on Tuesday then. Where was he coming from so late? Tennessee, can you contact Nexus, try and find out where he got on the Metro? Cheers. Now, what happened after he got off the Metro? We can assume he never made it home. Was he taken? Lured away? What other cameras are in the area?”

  Tennessee shrugged. “Frighteningly few. The climbing centre might have one. I can check and take a look for cars matching the ones Keaton described.”

  “Great.”

  “What about you, boss? What you got?” asked Keaton. “Do we have Omar’s phone? And, did you get anything useful from the kennels?”

  “No phone, unfortunately. And as for the kennels, no one’s seen anything, no one’s heard anything, no one knows anything.”

  Keaton blew a raspberry. “Balls.”

  “I had a good s
noop around once I’d finished questioning the staff but there were no signs of trouble. Still, I’ve asked Hong to sweep along the walking trail that links Dolly’s Place with the park.”

  “Shame,” said Keaton. “I really hoped bad dog was a reference to there.”

  “You mean…” Tennessee paused for dramatic effect. “We’re barking up the wrong tree?” He laughed at his own joke until Keaton clipped him on the back of the head.

  - Chapter 15 -

  Margot Swanson stubbed her cigarette into a metal grate atop a bin and waved a perfectly manicured hand at Cooper as she approached the main gates to the Royal Victoria Infirmary. A group of junior doctors gave the Scottish pathologist an admiring look as they passed. Margot glanced down at her outfit, smiled to herself and undid another button on her blouse. Happy with her adjustments, she pulled out a compact mirror and checked her ruby-red lipstick.

  “Margot.” Cooper tried to disguise the tension in her voice.

  “Great to see you, Erica. So, why have you summoned me into enemy territory?” Margot chuckled. She usually worked at the Freeman Hospital in Heaton.

  “I have an assault victim. Omar Ali. He’s in a coma…” Cooper’s voice trailed away as she spotted the mountainous engagement ring on Margot’s left hand. When she and Fuller had gone their separate ways he had got together with Margot suspiciously quickly. Cooper was certain the pair had been having an affair behind her back. It didn’t matter now. She was pleased to be shot of Fuller but the memory still stabbed at her and brought up all the feelings of inadequacy she’d tried to overcome. “Erm, where was I? Yes, he’s in a coma and suffered multiple stab wounds. The nurse said he’d been stabbed with scissors but I wanted your opinion on his wounds and other injuries.”

  Margot closed the compact mirror with a dramatic click and dropped it into her designer handbag. “Well, I prefer to work with the dead. But I’ll help if I can.”

  Cooper led her to Omar’s room and introduced the pathologist, with her perfect hour-glass curves, to the PC stationed on the ward. Bless him, thought Cooper, as Margot ran her eyes over his chest and arms. She’d have probably asked to squeeze his biceps if Cooper wasn’t stood next to her.

  “Shall we?” Cooper opened the door and took a moment to steady herself. Besides the subtle rise and fall of Omar’s chest, he barely looked alive. His bruising had developed further, mottling his skin with purples and greens and an IV fed nutrients into the crease of his elbow.

  Margot took in a sharp inhalation of breath. “My goodness. They did a number on him.”

  “He has severe head trauma,” said Cooper, “the doctor told me it’s the swelling in his brain that’s keeping him in the coma. They hope he’ll regain consciousness when the swelling goes down. But the longer he’s in a coma the less chance he has.”

  “That’s right,” Margot said, in a tone that made Cooper think of a primary school teacher congratulating a child on reciting the alphabet for the first time; as if her tiny, detective brain couldn’t comprehend a little medical knowledge. Margot put on some latex gloves, approached Omar and walked up and down both sides of his bed. As she examined him, Cooper glanced at her phone, hoping for news from Tennessee or Keaton. She had four missed calls from Tina from over an hour ago. What’s up? She typed, with one eye on Margot. Nothing. Doesn’t matter now, came the reply.

  “He’s been tied up at some point.” Margot pointed to his ribs and arms. “He has friction burns over these linear bruises. I’d be inclined to suggest he was bound around the torso with his arms pressed to each side of his body. See the bruising stops at his flanks and continues onto the arms.” She carefully lifted one arm to examine some of Omar’s back. “It continues around his upper back. A rough rope by the looks of it.”

  Cooper quietly made notes, allowing Margot’s thoughts to flow uninterrupted. A nurse assigned to Omar flinched as Margot rolled him further.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I won’t interfere with his tubes,” she assured her in her sweetest Highland’s accent. “The bigger wounds are on his back rather than his front. If he was dead I’d be able to get in there and estimate the depth, but as he isn’t - thank goodness, of course - I only have the width to go on.” She laid Omar flat again and peeled back a dressing on his chest. Again the nurse flinched but Margot ignored her. “Not necessarily scissors, but most likely. Do you have photographs from when he was brought in, before they stitched him up?”

  “Yes.” Cooper opened a file, pulled out a series of A4 photographs and handed them to Margot.

  Margot’s attention moved back and forth between Omar and the photographs. “There’s a symmetry to most of the wounds. Ovoids with bruising around each one. Here, look, the attacker needed a lot of force to puncture the skin as the cutting blades are contained. These wounds aren’t clean, they’re ragged at the edges. But here, look closer, these parallel sets of puncture wounds are from when the scissors are open. The wounds are fishtailed in opposite directions and the entry points are much smoother. Yes. I’d say scissors with a shaft of say ten to fifteen millimetres across. Probably just your everyday kitchen scissors.”

  Cooper straightened up from peering at Omar’s wounds and rubbed her lower back. “Thank you, Margot.”

  “Oh, I’m not done yet.” Margot moved to the top of the bed and examined Omar’s neck.

  Cooper put the gory photos back in her file and addressed the nurse. “Do you have the clothes he was wearing when he was brought in? We need them as evidence.”

  The nurse looked confused for a moment. “Clothes? No. He was naked when he was brought in.”

  “Naked?” Cooper’s eyebrows lifted an inch and she checked her notes. “No one told me that.”

  “His knees were caked in mud, his hands and feet too,” said the nurse.

  “He might have crawled away after the attack,” Cooper mused. She scribbled down a note reminding herself to check with Hong about any clothing that had been recovered.

  “This bruising is interesting,” Margot said, capturing Cooper’s attention once more. She pointed to Omar’s neck.

  “Strangulation attempt?”

  “No. No, I doubt that. These aren’t finger and thumb bruises.”

  “Rope? Like his arms?”

  Margot’s eyes narrowed. She straightened up, removed her gloves and placed a hand on her hip. “No, something smooth. Heavy too. It’s been there a while, feasibly over forty-eight hours, and it’s been pressed down on his clavicles and left bruising there as well. I don’t know what, but he’s had something clamped around his neck.”

  Cooper met her eyes. “Like a dog collar?”

  “Yes,” Margot said, “only much heavier. I suspect it was made of metal.”

  Cooper gulped and turned her head away. Margot had described a slave collar.

  * * *

  By the time Cooper negotiated city-centre traffic, picked up Atkinson, and made it back to the coast, dusk had arrived and Tynemouth’s sky was an inky blue. Cooper took Atkinson’s hand as they walked up to her front door. It felt nice. Warm. Soft but strong. After a day looking into Omar Ali’s case and seeing the worst of what one human could do to another, it was grounding to feel the simple pleasure of walking hand-in-hand with the person she loved.

  The smell of shepherd’s pie hit Cooper before she’d even closed the door behind her. Tina was scrubbing a pan in the kitchen sink. She didn’t look up when Cooper and Atkinson greeted her. She wasn’t being rude. She was just being Tina.

  Kenny raised a hand as he joined them in the kitchen. “Erica, Science Man.”

  “Of course he’s here,” muttered Atkinson, only loud enough for Cooper to hear. “He’s always here.”

  Cooper huffed and looked up at him. “He’s Tina’s father. Play nice.”

  Oblivious, Kenny opened the fridge and handed Atkinson a beer. “Erica?”

  Cooper nodded. “Hell, yes.” She took a long drink of the cool IPA and savoured the refreshing flavour before peering into the oven
to look at a layer of grated cheese bubbling atop a layer of creamy mash. “This looks amazing, Tina.”

  Tina still said nothing.

  Kenny continued to busy himself in the kitchen, setting the table and humming a tune to himself. It was vaguely familiar. “Why can I smell peat?”

  “That’ll be me.” Atkinson sniffed the shoulder of the fleece he’d been wearing and hung it up in the porch area. “A long day working in Simonside.”

  “Was it the duergar?” asked Cooper, her mouth curling at the corners.

  “The what?”

  “The dwarf things that live on the hills. Hong told me about them. Some local legend.”

  “Erica, two people lost their lives. They died awful deaths—”

  “Jeez, just trying to lighten the mood.” Cooper put her beer down and folded her arms over her chest.

  Kenny began to dish up and continued to hum through the tension. Then it hit Cooper where she knew the tune from.

  “That’s Cerberus by Hush In Hell,” she said, pointing a finger at Kenny. “That’s so weird. I was just listening to that song the other night.”

  Kenny beamed. “No way? Spooky. Well, great minds think alike.”

  Tina slammed a cupboard door shut. “And fools seldom differ.” She picked up her plate. “I’ll eat in my room.”

  Her eyes were wet and her face painted with fury.

  Cooper’s mouth fell open. “Whoa. Tina, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  Tina marched past her mother and headed for the stairs.

  “Is it Steven? He’s okay isn’t he?”

  “Of course he is. He’s a stupid bird. Looking after him isn’t rocket science.”

  The sound of footsteps running up the stairs and Tina’s door slamming left the three adults in stunned silence for a moment. They took their seats and Cooper turned to Kenny.

  “What’s going on?”