Remember, Remember

by Lisa Cutts

  Even though it was taken at night and would usually show very little, we could see that the front passenger was wearing a high-visibility vest.

  ‘Our next step,’ she said, tapping the edge of the picture with her fingertips, ‘is to arrest the three from the Polo for murder and see if we can at least find gunshot residue on their clothing or in the car.’

  DCI Freeman’s words sounded very positive, and there was enough to arrest on suspicion of Patrick Hudson’s murder, but if you scratched beneath the surface of having the car in the area at the relevant time of the shooting, if the arrests and warrants to search their premises and vehicles turned up little, we didn’t have much else. The glimmer of hope I had was a connection somewhere between Philip Peters and Leonard Rumbly. There had also been a link between the now-dead Patrick Hudson and Niall Rumbly. My personal feelings were that Patrick Hudson was no great loss to the world, but, that said, few people, me included, wanted to live in a society where people were gunned down next to Screwfix, even if those people were wife-beating criminals. Despite wanting to see someone charged and imprisoned for killing another, though, I couldn’t help the feeling of impatience to get the murder of Hudson dealt with so that I could get on with the business of arresting Leonard Rumbly.

  In the meantime, we had to assist with three warrants and arrests. Janice Freeman talked us through the list of resources she had and highlighted those roles that still needed assigning. She opened her SIO’s policy file and, glancing up from time to time, said, ‘My team has been briefed to plan for two days’ time. I’ve liaised with firearms to be on standby for the three warrants. I have a DC assigned the job of getting three warrants sworn out at the Magistrates’ Court and I’ve a list here of the staff to simultaneously enter and search the three target addresses. On top of that, of course, interview teams need to be made available. This is where we’re going to need some assistance from you.’

  I noticed that, as the DCI said this, she made a point of looking at Harry and Wingsy, avoiding my direction. Perhaps I was overthinking it.

  Janice Freeman continued, ‘I’ve a CSI assigned to each premises, an exhibits officer to take possession of every item seized, a case officer in the form of Mark Russell to put the paperwork together, plus a detective sergeant to sort out any enquiries that needed allocating, and then one of my detective inspectors to deal with any issues from custody matters to a Warrant of Further Detention back at the Magistrates’ Court if the need arises. I’m hoping that the enquiry team can be written off for as long as possible to free them up, so I’m praying that another job doesn’t come in over the next few days. If it does, we are well and truly in trouble. I’m offering working rest days but hardly anyone wants the extra hours. Oh, and also, if we need to take anything to the lab on an urgent lab run, I’ve a civilian investigator on standby so she can, if needed, run exhibits and DNA to the lab and back for analysis or default to taking statements. There are three set aside for seizing CCTV and downloading mobile phones when they’re seized. I only have two to take care of any fast-track actions coming out of the suspects’ accounts in the interviews.’

  As I listened to her, I remembered how much went into a murder investigation. It was such a massive task. Unfortunately, the message I was getting was that I should stay out of the entire process.

  ‘But,’ Freeman added, breaking into my thoughts, ‘if we have nothing else, they’re still on bail for handling stolen goods from their last arrest. It’s not much, but we’ve got enough to charge them with that. I think you’ll agree, though, that murder would be so much better.’

  55

  Admittedly I had enough work of my own to get on with, but I wasn’t happy about not being tasked with any part of the investigation. Try as I might, the following day I could not persuade Harry to let me get a look-in. I knew I was wasting my time, and only annoying him. He had been given instructions to keep me out of the arrests and subsequent interviews. Wingsy, however, had been sent to Headquarters to work alongside the arrest and interview teams. Cold Case was also part of the Serious Crime Directorate but, owing to lack of space, Cold Case remained on Riverstone police station while Major Crime, who were dealing with the murder suspects, worked from HQ. I’d kept out of the staffing struggles and was grateful that I was part of anything at all after being off sick for months. I hoped that being a part of Cold Case might mean I would be seen in a favourable light if vacancies became available on Major Crime. I needed to make myself enough of a nuisance that they would want me back, without being too much of a nuisance that they would turn me down.

  Right now, what I needed to do was the best job I could manage.

  I rang Wingsy. He sounded distant.

  ‘How’s it going, Wings?’

  ‘Yeah, good. Going to be a long day tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t forget that I’m here and I can come in early if you need me. You know – first-hand knowledge and all that.’

  There was a pause. ‘We’re bringing our prisoner to Riverstone when he’s in custody, so I’ll see you tomorrow, but best make sure you keep out of the way. Got to go. I’ve loads to do. Bye, duchess.’

  I stared at the receiver, before placing it back on its cradle.

  When the paperwork that I was supposed to be reading couldn’t hold my attention for another hour, I went to find Michaela Irving. She was in her empty office, looking through one of many blue files piled on her desk. Her team wasn’t overstaffed at the best of times but I had rarely seen it so empty. She looked up and smiled as I walked in.

  ‘Hi, Kayla,’ I said, sitting at the desk opposite her. I wanted to pick her brain further and ask her what else she knew about the current investigation into the drugs deaths, but, as it was mixed in with the Rumblys and the three arrested for handling stolen goods, I had to be cautious about anything I told her. I wasn’t sure how low-key the early-morning warrants were being kept.

  As it turned out, I need not have worried.

  ‘You on the five am start for Philip Peters and his associates in the morning, Nin?’ she asked.

  ‘The secret job that’s on a need-to-know basis? No, I’m about the only one not involved.’

  ‘Do you want to be?’

  ‘Not sure, to tell you the truth.’ I paused and found myself scratching my head, as if I was trying to labour the point that I’d thought about this long and hard. ‘It is Saturday tomorrow, so I know that the staffing levels are low. Not being asked to help out when they’re desperate is a bit of a kick in the teeth, but I have loads to do on Rumbly senior and the train crash, not to mention all the other personal stuff that’s mounting up. On the other hand, a bit of overtime wouldn’t go amiss.’

  ‘How many are they calling in to work on a rest day?’

  ‘Enough to keep the superintendent’s blood pressure sky-high.’

  ‘Why don’t they leave it till Monday?’

  ‘In case someone else gets blown away over the weekend. There’d be hell to pay if that happened. And besides, I don’t think there’ll be any more on duty on Monday. Anyway, Kayla, I was going to ask you if there was any progress on Errol Chandler’s drug overdose?’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t like it.’ She rummaged through the rickety stack of files and removed one. As she pushed it towards me, I read the words ‘CHANDLER, ERROL’ and ‘OVERDOSE’ written in large capitals alongside his name.

  ‘Why won’t I like it?’ I asked, settling back in my seat for whatever was coming next.

  ‘Because there’s little chance this is going anywhere, but it’s too early to officially write it off.’

  ‘What about the Rumblys supplying the drugs? What about Sidney Manning being given Naloxone by someone? What does Sidney remember?’

  Kayla straightened the file in front of her before answering me. ‘First off, all we have is a recorded message of a dying man, off his head on drugs, giving us the name of the Rumbly family. Secondly, Manning says he can’t remember very much – only that he didn’t inject his m
ate with anything at all – very convenient. There’s a good chance his memory is hazy. Drug addicts aren’t renowned for their total recall. We can’t prove that Manning injected Chandler, or name anyone else who did, come to that. Put yourself in Manning’s position: it could easily have been his dead body the paramedics were called to. If you want my opinion, for what it’s worth, I think that someone turned up with a new batch of heroin to test, Chandler and Manning were the guinea pigs and it went wrong.’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, but the Naloxone bottle had no prints on it at all – no identifying marks even though it was prescription-only. Who the hell did it belong to?’

  ‘That’s the problem, Nin – we don’t know and we can’t prove anything. I need to put you right on a couple of things, though.’ She pulled out a colour photograph from the file and pushed it across to me. It was of an open pack labelled ‘Naloxone Hydrochloride 1mg/ml solution for injection’. The pack was about eight inches long, with a label on one end with the expiry date, batch and manufacturing numbers. The identifying marks had been scratched out.

  ‘As you can see,’ she said, ‘it’s not a bottle. The pack contains a two ml prefilled syringe and two needles. None of this bears one single fingerprint. I’ve had a look at breakins at pharmacies and doctor’s surgeries throughout the division in the weeks leading up to Chandler’s death. There’s only one, but nationally it’s more of a problem. In Scotland, addicts don’t even need a prescription for Naloxone. Without any way of identifying the origins of the Naloxone, we’re going nowhere with this.’

  ‘It’s hardly likely to have found its way down from the Highlands to get itself injected into some poor bugger in the southeast of England, though, is it? Was it on its holidays?’

  I got the impression that Michaela didn’t find my sarcasm all that helpful on top of her workload. ‘Also, it would then still have a batch number,’ she said. ‘We don’t even have that.’

  ‘Yes, but the point is, why did someone save Sidney Manning, and go to the trouble of making sure the Naloxone was untraceable, but leave Errol Chandler to die or inject him with enough heroin to stop him seeing another day?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘my guess would be because he freely gave up the Rumbly name, and those dropping off the gear did what they needed to.’

  ‘I get what you’re saying,’ I said. I sat bolt upright. ‘These people watched Chandler die because of the phone call he made.’

  Kayla answered me with a slow nod of her head, eyes boring into mine.

  ‘So what we need to do is find out who delivers drugs for the Rumblys and we’ve got our murderer.’

  56

  Possibly the last words Errol Chandler ever uttered were to speak the name of the Rumbly family. I jumped to the conclusion that Leonard Rumbly was behind it all, although I recognised it as no more than a guess, and knew he would never admit to it under any circumstances. Perhaps I only wanted it to be him because of the picture I was building of the man and his criminality.

  When I felt that I’d taken up enough of Michaela’s time, I asked her if I could photocopy a couple of parts of the file for future reference. Back at my own desk, I spread the sheets out in front of me and prepared to highlight anything I thought might be relevant or that jumped out at me. I failed to find one single significant piece of evidence. I was beginning to see why Kayla had said it was going nowhere.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the paperwork and trying to formulate some sort of plan to arrest Leonard Rumbly. My strategy was starting to look less sketchy but I still had a long way to go before I was convinced that the CPS would authorise charging him. I realised I had lost track of time when I was jolted into the present by my phone ringing on the desk next to me. The screen display showed it was Stan.

  Initially I made a grab for the phone, pleased that my old friend was calling me. As I put my hand out, though, I remembered what my mum had said about Stan wanting me to live with him. I needed to talk to the man who had looked out for me and my sister when we were recovering from our childhood ordeal, but still I hesitated.

  I stared at my mobile, hand stretched out towards it. I was still deciding whether to answer it or not when it stopped ringing. I wanted to speak to Stan but the argument with my parents over dinner had tainted things: it was the first time that anyone had openly said to me that I could so easily now be enduring my sister’s life, while she enjoyed mine. I had always known it but, if it wasn’t said out loud, it remained in my head, where it stayed as a dirty little secret.

  I took a deep breath and, without giving myself too much time to back out, I pressed his number on the screen.

  ‘Hello, Nina,’ he said.

  ‘Hi, Stan. I’m in the office and couldn’t get my phone out of my bag quick enough,’ I lied.

  ‘Thought I’d catch up and see how you were. You didn’t answer my text on Wednesday about Sunday lunch. How are you fixed?’

  I hesitated again. I couldn’t avoid him forever.

  ‘This Sunday would be great,’ I answered with more enthusiasm in my voice than I felt.

  ‘Splendid. Will Bill be joining us?’

  I knew it was Bill’s day off but I didn’t know if I wanted him there. He had heard my mum’s side of it, but I wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t be better if I spoke to Stan and dealt with my own feelings in private. ‘Can I let you know?’ I answered. ‘I’m not sure if he’s seeing his own folks this weekend.’

  ‘OK, then. I’ll see you at two o’clock on Sunday. I’ll let you go; you sound a little distracted there at work.’

  I was distracted, but probably not for the reasons he imagined.

  57

  When I got home, Bill was still out. He’d told me something about playing golf and having a couple of drinks with his friend afterwards. I didn’t think he’d be that late, but I couldn’t remember where he said he was going for a drink or who he was going with. I vaguely recalled him muttering something about a mate from work called Seth. It was an unusual name and I thought I would have heard of Seth before now, but I got to work planning our weekend. I thought it should start with loading some washing into the machine, or I’d have to go out and buy new clothes that I couldn’t afford. I scoured the house for unmentionables to put on a forty-degree wash. Happy that I had stuffed the washer to its limits, I set about taking the dry clothes out of the airing cupboard and putting them back in their homes. Enjoying the distraction of domesticity, I allowed myself the happy thought that this was what my life could consist of for some time to come. Gathering several pairs of Bill’s socks in my hand, I walked to the chest of drawers to replenish the stock.

  On the many occasions I’d opened this particular drawer, it had been crammed with socks. We’d both been so busy lately that clean attire was at crisis point, so the contents had dwindled somewhat.

  The drawer was empty. Empty apart from a small blue jewellery box. The type of box that would hold a ring.

  I found myself, for the second time in a couple of hours, holding out my hand towards an object, hesitant as to whether I should pick it up or not. I tried to fight the urge to go back downstairs, leaving well alone. I wasn’t supposed to be snooping around my boyfriend’s home. He had asked me to move in with him, albeit temporarily. I had a very clear memory of how he’d shyly asked me, when I was released from the hospital, whether I wanted to move in for a week or two, or he could, he’d said, stay in my spare bedroom if I wanted to be in my own home. He’d been careful not to be too pushy. Despite the very good (but legal) drugs I was on at the time, I knew it had taken a lot for him to ask me, and it had made him feel uncomfortable. So from that to an engagement ring? That was all it could be, surely?

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I made up my mind that if I could face Stan in two days’ time and ask him if, decades ago, he had wanted me to live with him and his wife when I was a child, I could face opening a small leather box.

  It wasn’t an engagement ring. It was a weddi
ng ring.

  I stared at it, shut the box and then opened it again, hoping it had changed into something else. Of course it hadn’t. It was still a gold wedding band. From the size, it was a man’s. I assumed it would fit Bill’s ring finger. I was trying to convince myself so hard that this wasn’t really Bill’s gold wedding band, I even tried to convince myself that this somehow could be Walter McRay’s wife’s stolen wedding ring. I knew that was insane. And I knew this was turning into a very bad week.

  I put the box back and went downstairs. I thought about having a glass of wine but, apart from it only being six-thirty in the evening, my mind was filled with the last time I had seen Tommy Ross. I thought about his yellow skin and sunken eyes. Then I remembered that I hadn’t called the hospital to check how he was. I had too much to think about and I was coming undone.

  At the back of the kitchen cupboard, I found some herbal tea. Something calming with camomile and rhubarb. It tasted like TCP but I was determined to avoid the wine.

  I sat on the sofa in the approaching gloom of the evening light and waited for Bill to come home.

  58

  By the time he did, I was in a foul mood, but at least I was sober. I heard his cheery greeting from the front door as he abandoned his golf clubs and jacket.

  ‘Why isn’t the light on?’ he said as he opened the door from the hallway. He stood still as he looked at my face. ‘What’s happened?’ he said.

  ‘I put the washing away,’ I replied.

  ‘Blimey, by the looks of you I thought someone had died.’

  ‘I found your wedding ring.’

  ‘Ah.’

  I waited. At least he wasn’t denying it.

  Bill sat in the armchair opposite me. He ran his hands through his hair and said, ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’ I think I was sporting a look of horror as he rushed to add, ‘Not a surprise that I’ve been married before, but that we could take it to the gold shop. I always meant to tell you I was married, but our relationship never got off to a particularly normal start. We had one date and then you ended up in hospital. I’m crazy about you, Nina, you know that. This weekend was the time I was going to tell you. I’d put the ring away and was only about to explain things to you because you’ve settled back into work and you’re so much better. Ask me questions, any questions you like, and I’ll answer them all.’