by Lisa Cutts
This thought brought me to Lee’s office. He was sitting at his desk, tapping away on the keyboard. He looked up as I got to the door.
‘Hi, Nin,’ he said, getting up to give me a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Heard you were back. You alright?’
‘Yeah, I’m OK, ta. Getting back into things. Do you have five minutes to talk to me about the recent drug ODs?’
‘For you, course. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Lee set about making us both tea. He even offered me a doughnut. The stereotypes were true. I declined, mostly because they didn’t look particularly appetising and had Friday’s date on the box.
While he waited for the kettle to boil, he pushed three box files my way. One was marked ‘Daryl Hopkins’, another ‘Errol Chandler’ and the third ‘Lea Hollingsworth’.
‘Everything you need to know is in there,’ he said, removing the teabags from the mugs. ‘They’re copies of all three files. I haven’t had a chance to go through them in detail yet but, as you probably know, as DLO I get passed information on all drug-related deaths in the division and then have to pass it on to the drug and alcohol inspector – Susie Bradley. She in turn goes to meetings to look at how we dealt with them and what we could have done better, and shares the information with other agencies. It’s all about reducing deaths due to any drugs at the end of the day. But this lot are a different story.’
He sat down opposite me. We both took a tentative sip from our steaming drinks.
Lee glanced at the stack of files. ‘On all three of the deaths, the scene was sealed after police were called, a CSI attended, took scene photos – copies are in the files – and then the CSIs went to the PMs so that the body samples were sent to the lab as soon as possible. Even though Daryl’s death, the first one, wasn’t thought to be suspicious at the time, the initial post mortem results were reviewed by another pathologist, who requested further tests. Toxicology results showed that the heroin in his bloodstream was within the fatal range, but there seemed to be no long-term drug use or dependence. Daryl wasn’t known to police other than for shoplifting when he was a kid and, even though his parents said he used to smoke the odd joint, tests didn’t even show up cannabis use. I don’t think it would have gone much further, though, had it not been for the death of Errol Chandler.’
As Lee took Errol’s file from the middle of the pile, I said, ‘Yeah, I know a bit about this from Kayla and I was at Lea’s PM.’
‘I’m going to have to leave you to it soon, Nina. I have to be at the morning meeting. You’re welcome to stay here and look through the files. I have to ask, though – what does this have to do with Cold Case?’
‘I’m working on a historic train crash from the Sixties. The person we think was behind it all is Leonard Rumbly. His son and grandson probably had something to do with these drugs deaths, and I think he was involved in them too.’ I placed my hand on the top of Lea’s file. ‘It’s very doubtful if we’ll ever get Rumbly senior charged with murder after fifty years because we need more evidence, but he deserves to go to prison. Even if it’s for supplying the heroin rather than for murder. It won’t be the result I hoped for, but it’s better than nothing.’
‘Well, good luck with it. I’ll be back in an hour or so if there’s anything else you want to ask.’
Lee locked his computer and set off in the direction of the conference room, taking his tea with him. I took the opportunity to look through the three files, complete with scene photos. I laid the pictures of the three victims side by side. To see all three young corpses, their exposed arms coloured purple, foam around their mouths, Daryl’s nose bloody from where his face smashed into the corner of the table he was found beside… it was a montage of despair.
Someone, somewhere was responsible for the deaths of three young people. And I was desperate to know how their murders would lead me to the incarceration of Leonard Rumbly.
61
I took myself back to my own office, intending to speak to Harry about it. I couldn’t deny being keen to leave the morbid photos behind, but I knew that I’d eventually return to view them again, and throw in the post mortem pictures for good measure. Somehow the photos were worse than actually being there. But they were useful for establishing the cause of death.
Harry was swearing at Jim when I got to the door. I wasn’t sure what had caused his tirade but I wasn’t all that interested. I waited until he’d finished ranting and then asked if I could have a word with him in the canteen.
He didn’t look as though he had time for me today. ‘I’ll buy you one of those cheese and bacon twists,’ I offered.
‘Come on, then, Nin. And make sure you go out and get that bloody statement while I’m gone, Jim.’ He turned his attention back to me and asked, ‘Latte too?’
‘When did getting your sergeant’s attention become so expensive?’
I took my purse from my handbag and followed a clearly hungry and thirsty Harry out of the office. As we reached the top of the staircase, Harry held the door open for me and said, ‘I heard you were in here over the weekend. What were you trying to find out?’
I hesitated only briefly before I said, ‘I came in to get my phone charger.’
‘Don’t talk such bollocks,’ he said as he followed me through the door. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve only ever known you set foot in a nick on a rest day when you’ve been sat at the bar with wine on the go.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, and we don’t have a bar any more. I’ll level with you: I wanted to find out what happened to the three who were arrested for the shooting – even more so when I heard there were four in custody. Curiosity won at the end of the day but I didn’t want to put anyone on the spot by ringing them. Annie’s my friend, but I don’t want to get anyone here into trouble.’
By now we’d got to the counter, and Harry was choosing his breakfast and the most expensive beverage he could find. There was a lull in our conversation until we sat down at the quietest empty table, and I was £7 lighter.
‘I wanted to catch up with you anyway,’ said Harry, greasy pastry snack held to his lips. ‘I’ve got to do a return-to-work assessment with you – see how you’re getting on, that kind of thing.’
He took a bite and I took my chance to talk without him interrupting. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t or he’d spray me with filo.
‘I’m fine. Bit tired, but it’s the train crash and the drugs deaths I really need to talk about.’ He nodded as he chewed. I carried on. ‘Well, I spoke to Lee Schofield this morning about the three deaths and I briefly saw Kayla as she rushed off to HQ for a meeting with Major Crime. It doesn’t take a genius to know that these are being linked.’
He swallowed the mouthful of food and went for his coffee to wash it down. I knew I only had his attention for a short amount of time so I talked faster. ‘They’re linked – they have to be. This is the Rumblys. I know that the Intel unit would have been tasking source-handlers to speak to their contacts and find out about the drug supply and where it came from. I haven’t got as far as the toxicology reports – that’s even if they’re all back yet, and I’m aware how long these things can take. Do we know if it was the amount of heroin that killed them, or its purity?’
Harry shrugged, folding the rest of his breakfast in two and shoving it into his mouth. He said something that sounded like, ‘Not back yet.’
‘What’s not back yet? The toxicology?’
He nodded and then said, a little more clearly, ‘Not all the results are back. Another pathologist reviewed them and asked for further tests. Three drug overdoses raised a lot of concerns. The balloon went up with the girl’s death – what’s her name?’
‘Lea. Lea Hollingsworth.’
‘Yeah, her. She had absolutely no link to drugs or drug supply; her medical history didn’t show any signs of drugs or dependence, and I take it from the PM that her organs all looked intact?’
I broke eye contact and glanced in the direction of the two civilian property officers walking past our table,
taking a break from booking in overnight seizures of drugs, keys, shoplifted shopping and all manner of other items. They both waved and took a seat with their own ridiculously priced teas. I smiled at them, something I didn’t feel like doing, before I answered Harry. ‘I’m no expert on the workings of the human body, but her liver, kidneys and so on looked very healthy to me.’ I thought of Lea’s body stretched out for examination in the PM. She was years younger than me but I realised how close I had come the previous year to being on just such a mortuary table. I hoped they would have sent an out-of-county SIO to watch my post mortem. There was no dignity in death, despite the professional attitude everyone adopted. I shuddered at the thought of a DCI I knew watching my corpse being cut open. Harry brushed the flakes from his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.
‘Don’t go dwelling on it.’
‘On what?’
‘Lea’s death and the post mortem. We’ll sort it. We’ll get Rumbly. Every dog has its day, and the Rumblys’ is soon. What’s got to you, anyway?’
‘It’s not fair, that’s what,’ I said. ‘People like Rumbly make their money from gambling, drugs, exploiting others. They sell drugs to people who can’t afford them so they steal, burgle, take from the elderly and vulnerable, leaving their lives in misery. These fucking people get me down.’
Harry crushed the paper cup he was holding and said, ‘Well, think yourself lucky. I’ve had ten more years of this endless bollocks than you have. Think how sodding miserable it’s making me. Now stop moaning; I’ve been told to update you about what you’ll be doing next.’
‘Really,’ I said. ‘What am I to be doing?’
‘Kayla’s been sent to HQ because of the drug deaths.’
‘I know that,’ I said, ‘I’ve just told you that.’
‘But what you don’t know is that we’re being given the go-ahead to bring Rumbly in for the train crash. With what you’ve got from Joe Bring, Tommy Ross and Marilyn Fitzhubert, the decision was made to make the arrest and see what other evidence we get.’ He paused and glanced at the nearby occupied tables, moved a few inches closer to me across the table and added, ‘See what else we get from the searches.’
‘OK, I’m aware of what you’re saying. But what’s my task?’
‘You’re to be working with Mark Russell. And the bit you’re really going to like is that you’re arresting and interviewing none other than Leonard Rumbly.’
My detective sergeant was right: I really did like that.
62
At five am on strike day, I got out of bed and crept around the house, trying to get ready for work without waking Bill. I wasn’t used to being so careful, or quiet. Several times I dropped something or had to sneak back into our bedroom. I should have slept in the spare room but the ever-thoughtful Bill had told me he didn’t mind and that, even if I did wake him up, he would easily get back to sleep. I’d have liked to say I had been that courteous on the few occasions in the last couple of months when he’d woken me up. But no, I had tutted and moaned, turned over and over and eventually told him to ‘turn the poxy light off’. Still he let me live here. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t realise how lucky I was.
I got ready for work excited at the thought of being about to enter Leonard Rumbly’s home and arrest him, and finally ask him about the train crash. As I attempted to calm my hair down by attacking it with the straighteners, I made my mind up that as soon as Leonard Rumbly had been arrested and I’d finished interviewing him, I was going to confront Bill. I couldn’t go on like this. I didn’t want his sympathy. I had to be here for a better reason than that.
The singed smell coming from my hair jolted me back to where I was standing in the hallway, trying to make the lead from the straighteners stretch across to the bathroom mirror. British safety standards would never allow me in a bathroom with live electrical items but I still thought it was worth a try. I could only see the reflection of the left-hand side of my hair, so I had a guess at the other side. It was five-thirty in the morning. Who was likely to care?
I grabbed a Danish pastry on my way through the kitchen to where I’d left my handbag, keys and security pass, and went to work.
Despite the early hour, the entire police station was lit up when I got there. Several lads and lasses in uniform were already at work in the back yard, filling their vans, checking the equipment, winding each other up. Some were getting ready to go off duty and some just starting. I waved half-heartedly at one or two, still a bit drowsy but feeling the excitement start to build. I was very much looking forward to meeting the man I’d heard so much about. With any luck, I wouldn’t be disappointed with whatever the next couple of hours brought my way.
Janice Freeman kept the briefing short. Following a quick, ‘Morning, all, and thanks for getting up a bit earlier than usual,’ she gave us concise instructions about that morning’s warrants and arrests. She scanned the room and said, ‘Mark and Nina, you’re to go with Sergeant George Keane to Leonard Rumbly’s address.’ I looked around the room at the uniform officers and nodded at George. He replied with a wink at me and a wave of the search warrant at the DCI.
‘Arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder – the exact wording I want you to use is on the briefing sheet,’ she continued. ‘As agreed, we’re going for a knock on the door, rather than forcing entry. Whatever we may all think of our suspect, he is, at the end of the day, in his seventies, has only historic warning signs of violence, and the only links we have with the shooting of Patrick Hudson are via his son, Andy, through the telephone calls to his landline from someone at the scene. We’ve had recent information that Andy hasn’t visited his father for some time. We think there may have been some sort of a falling out between them over the grandson, Niall. Andy Rumbly is at his own home address as we speak.’
I was watching Freeman intently. As she said the word ‘information’, her eyes flicked in the direction of the plain clothes intelligence officer sitting at the side of the room. The DCI didn’t allow herself to look at him but I got the impression that the Rumbly family had been under surveillance for some time. No one was going to tell me the truth about it, as it was always on a need-to-know basis, but all officers knew it went on.
‘The rest of those here are going out to arrest Andy Rumbly for possession with intent to supply class A drugs,’ continued Freeman. ‘You’ve all had the briefing sheets sent to you by email so you’re aware of what you’re doing. Never know, we may still be able to link him to our drug overdoses yet.’
A murmur went around the room and someone muttered, ‘Believe it when I see it.’
‘Any questions?’ asked DCI Freeman, scanning the room.
‘What about Niall Rumbly, ma’am?’ said Wingsy.
‘Good point, John,’ she replied, ‘but, as he’s in prison and has been throughout this, we’ll deal with him another day, after we’ve dealt with the rest of his family.’
At six-thirty, we piled out of the conference room. Stab-proof vest on, I left the building with Mark Russell and we chatted as we walked to the car. I had worked with him for a short spell the previous year but didn’t know him very well. As with most police officers, when you were thrown together to carry out an enquiry, small talk was rarely a problem. We had something in common to dissect, as well as the usual moaning and complaining about the job in general.
Mark drove behind the marked police van to Leonard Rumbly’s address. It was neither the time nor the place to dwell on family, boyfriend or financial problems, so I focused on what I had to do. I’d been so keen to finally arrest Rumbly, I couldn’t afford to let my concentration slip.
Within twenty minutes we’d pulled up opposite Leonard Rumbly’s address across from the police van which was blocking his driveway. The uniform team within it had already started to approach the front door, so Mark and I jumped out of the car and joined the advance party. When everyone was in position at the front and back of the house, I knocked at the door.
A minute or t
wo passed before we heard movement from inside. We had the legal power to force the door open but Freeman had told us to avoid that if possible. It was cheaper and involved a lot less paperwork if we could get inside without taking the door off its hinges. As we were arresting Rumbly for something that had happened so long ago, it would be more difficult to justify it, too.
The door opened. An open-mouthed, dishevelled, pyjama-clad man stood before two detectives and five uniform officers.
‘Leonard Rumbly?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
By now, George Keane had taken the warrant from his jacket and was showing it to Rumbly. I took this chance to run an eye over him. He was shorter than I’d pictured him, but then I had to take his bare feet into account. He was also stouter than I’d imagined. Some of my preconceptions could have been down to the old photograph I’d seen of him with his arm around Tommy Ross. That was a long time ago, but Rumbly didn’t look as though he’d aged much better than Tommy. I wasn’t getting the impression it was down to alcohol in his case, but the decades hadn’t been particularly kind to Rumbly either. Of course, most people probably wouldn’t look their best at such an hour, having been woken by a crowd of police outside their home, banging to get in.
The person I was looking at seemed to be taking the presence of so many officers on his doorstep in his stride. I felt genuine relief at this, because I didn’t want him to collapse. An old man being taken ill when the police arrived at his house was bound to propel the whole incident on to the local news and into the paper. And then we would all end up being interviewed by our force’s Professional Standards Department – not something I fancied. Not to mention that I was looking forward to asking him about the Wickerstead Valley train crash.