by Mark Romain
“I see,” Jack sighed, knowing that Peterson had meant well. As angry as he was, there was nothing to be gained by biting Peterson’s head off.
Then Peterson surprised him by saying that DCS Holland was attending the scene himself, going directly from his home in Epping. Something didn’t add up. Why would Holland attend a scene in person? Against his will, Jack felt his interest piqued.
“As per the instructions on the call-out sheet, I’ve already contacted DI Dillon, sir. He told me to tell you that he’d send out the group pager message. He should be with you in about twenty minutes.”
Tyler thanked DS Peterson and replaced the receiver. Cursing under his breath, he made his way into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Jack detested early starts; always had, always would. The fact that he’d only had four hours of sleep made today particularly unpleasant.
How ironic, he thought. The one night I let my hair down and this happens! No one who knew Jack Tyler would have described him as a party animal. And yet he had partied with the best of them last night, celebrating a friend’s fortieth birthday. It had been a crazy affair, and he had lingered to the very end, safe in the knowledge that today was his day off so he could sleep in until late morning, or early afternoon, if he wanted to – and he really wanted to.
That was clearly not meant to be.
As he stood in the shower cubicle, its powerful jet bombarding his tired limbs with steaming hot water, he gradually began to feel more human. He remained there for several minutes, allowing the scalding water to work its magic until he felt able to face the day ahead. As a token protest at being called in on his day off, he decided not to bother shaving, even though with two days’ worth of growth already covering his face, he knew he really ought to have made the effort. Jack vigorously towelled himself dry, wondering how badly the call to duty would interfere with his plans for the day. Talk about bad timing! Today was his mother’s sixtieth birthday, and his father had arranged a surprise dinner party to celebrate the event. The entire clan was under strict instruction to attend – come hell or high water. He didn’t dare miss it; his absence would break her heart. And dad, who had gone to such efforts, not only to organise the get-together but also to keep it a secret, would never forgive him. Whatever else happened today, Jack promised himself, he would be there for his family.
Precisely twenty minutes after receiving the unwanted telephone call, Jack Tyler stood in the kitchen finishing off the last of his coffee and toast, which had been hurriedly prepared and hastily consumed. As he put the crockery in the dishwasher the doorbell rang half a dozen times in quick succession. Tyler opened the street door and scowled unwelcomingly, only to have a folded newspaper thrust in his face. “Aren’t you a little old to have a paper round?” he asked, snatching the paper from his caller’s outstretched hand.
“If my boss paid me more, I wouldn’t need to,” Detective Inspector Tony Dillon said.
“If I had my way, I wouldn’t pay you at all,” Tyler growled. “Ringing my doorbell like a bloody debt collector! What will my neighbours think?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Dillon said lightly. “From what I hear, they don’t like you much, anyway.”
“Ha, ha,” Tyler said, tossing the Sunday paper onto a kitchen worktop. He doubted that he’d get the chance to read that today. He returned to the hall, where he scooped up his warrant card, mobile phone, and keys from a small table.
“Bloody hell, Jack! You look rough,” Dillon said. “What time did you get to bed last night?”
“The problem’s not what time I went to bed last night, it’s the ungodly time that I had to get up today!” Tyler complained.
Sometimes Dillon had to remind himself that Jack Tyler was not only one of the Metropolitan Police’s youngest DCIs, he was also one of their most respected homicide detectives. Standing there, unshaven, with his short brown hair uncombed, his collar sticking up on one side and his shirt hanging out on the other, and looking as though he needed at least another four hours of sleep, Tyler more closely resembled a vagrant than a top-notch detective. “So, tell me. Are you deliberately trying to get yourself known as Britain’s answer to Columbo?”
“What?”
“It’s just that you’re not wearing a tie today, and your suit is all creased like you haven’t hung it up since the last time you wore it, and you haven’t shaved or combed your hair. Oh – and your shoes could do with a polish,” Dillon explained. “Apart from that, you look very presentable.”
Tyler had five off the peg suits that he rotated, whereas Dillon was renowned for his immaculate appearance and his expensive taste in clothes. He had arrived at Jack’s house looking resplendent in a charcoal two-piece Pierre Cardin suit, a crisp white T.M. Lewin shirt, and a red silk tie. The decorative silk hanky protruding from his top pocket was folded to perfection, despite the early morning call, and his gold cufflinks and diamond studded tiepin shined as though they had just been polished – as did his shoes.
“You’re very observant. I can see why you chose to become a detective. So what if I’m not wearing a tie and my suit is a little creased. Who cares?” Jack had a tie in his pocket, which he planned to put on as soon as they got to work, but he was damned if he was going to tell Dillon that.
“I do,” Dillon said, “You look scruffy, like Columbo, only worse.”
“I look fine.”
“I bet you haven’t even looked in the mirror today,” Dillon chided, shaking his head in disappointment. “You could’ve at least combed your hair. I’m sure you do it just to spite me. Well, I’m not being seen in public with you looking like that.”
With a sigh that signalled defeat, Tyler briskly ran his fingers through his still wet hair, working it into something resembling order. “Have you arranged for an exhibits officer to go to the scene yet?” he asked, pulling out his tie.
“Of course,” Dillon said.
“And the group pager message?”
“Sent. I’ve said there will be a briefing at HT at nine o’clock.” HT was the phonetic code for Whitechapel police station.
“Good.” Jack turned away from the hall mirror and faced Dillon. “Happy now?” he demanded somewhat petulantly.
“It’s a bit better. Pity about the stubble though,” Dillon said as he pulled Jack’s collar down for him and straightened the knot of his tie. Unlike Tyler, Dillon wouldn’t dream of going to work unshaven, unless he was on a stakeout and therefore forced to ‘dress down’. This designer beard malarkey that was now becoming trendy was, in his not so humble opinion, for faggots and vagrants.
“Thank you for your care and concern, Mrs Dillon,” Jack said, brushing his friend’s hands away from his collar. “You’ll make someone a fine wife one of these days.”
“Is that an offer?”
“No. Now, if you’re quite through picking on me, can I suggest that we make our way to the scene?” Tyler suggested, feeling a little like a henpecked husband.
Dillon obediently followed Tyler out of the house. “My, my,” he goaded, “we did get out of the wrong side of the bed – again!”
Tyler glanced over his shoulder. “Bollocks,” he growled.
Dillon smiled sweetly. “Next time you can make your own way in.”
Jack paused in mid-stride. “Please, Dill, I’m feeling very delicate today so can we skip the usual pleasantries?”
“Bloody hell, Jack! Why are you always such an arse in the morning?”
”Because I hate getting up early, that’s why.”
“But the morning’s the –”
“– best time of the day,” Jack cut in, speaking over his friend. “How could I forget with you ramming it down my throat every five minutes?”
The bickering continued as they crossed the street to a battered dark green Vauxhall Omega, which had definitely seen better days. DS Steve Bull, another member of his team, was sitting behind the wheel, waiting to go. Jack raised a hand in greeting. “Morning Stevie.”
“Morning gu
v. Rough night, was it?”
Did he really look that bad? Jack wondered, or had Dillon primed him to say that before getting out of the car?
“For fucks sake, don’t you start, or I’ll send you straight back to division.”
Bull grinned. “Yes, boss.”
“Right Steve,” Jack said as he got in the car, “DCS Holland’s already on his way, which can’t be a good sign. I’d rather not keep him waiting, so let’s blue light it,” he instructed.
“You’re the boss.”
“It’s a pity he doesn’t realise that,” Jack said, nodding at Dillon, who, having removed his jacket, was only now getting into the car.
“Oh, give it a rest. You don’t want me to crease my jacket, do you?” Dillon replied belligerently.
“I don’t know why you spend so much money on suits. With all those bulging muscles you look like a couple of sacks of potatoes wrapped in a tight-fitting cloth,” Jack said, enjoying the look of hurt that appeared on his friends face.
“Yeah, well, at least it’s quality cloth, unlike that cheap rubbish you wear,” Dillon pointed out haughtily.
“Some of us are born with style, others have to buy it,” Jack countered.
Not long after meeting them, Steve had made the mistake of remarking that they argued worse than an old married couple. The observation hadn’t been well received by either of them, even though there was an awful lot of truth in it. After being told to mind his own business, Steve quickly learned to tune them out when they were having a go at each other. Now, he hardly even noticed the squabbling.
“Let’s go then, Steve, before Sean Connery, here, starts making any more personal comments about me,” Dillon said as he pulled his seatbelt on.
Grinning, Bull flipped on the switches that activated the concealed blue lights: one set fitted behind the front grill, the other mounted in the rear window of the unmarked police car. He dropped the automatic gearshift of the powerful car into sports mode and gunned the accelerator.
Steve Bull was a thin, athletic, man with greying hair. At forty-one years of age, he had been a policeman for more than two decades and had been ‘around the block’ a few times before joining the murder squad. He had been on the murder squad for six months now, and since joining Tyler’s team they had taken on five murder investigations. A couple had been straightforward, but the rest had been challenging. It had been an interesting learning curve, to say the least.
Before transferring to AMIP, Bull had been a DS on a CIPP team in the main CID office at Stoke Newington, one of the busiest stations in the Met. The acronym, CIPP, stood for Crime Investigation Priority Project, but it was really just a fancy way of saying a small team of experienced detectives dealing with major crime on the borough. There were normally four, each being run by a DS and staffed by DCs.
The constant caseload of near-fatal shootings, abductions, stabbings, rapes and drug-related crime had left him feeling jaded and disillusioned with the job, or more accurately, with the people that stopped him from doing it properly.
He had spent too long working under the supervision of senior police officials who were so far removed from the real world that they couldn’t differentiate between petty criminals and hardcore offenders who raped, murdered and pillaged without hesitation or remorse.
The job had become too political for his liking. He was sick of the never-ending power struggles within the Service, and continually frustrated by the interference of politicians and civil rights activists – the so-called ‘do-gooders’ brigade, who meant well but knew very little.
They seemed unable to understand one simple overriding fact: that the debased people he and his colleagues dealt with were extremely dangerous individuals who showed no remorse or guilt; they had no feelings of compassion towards those that had suffered, or their loved ones.
Working on the murder squad, with quality people like Tyler and Dillon, had been like a much-needed breath of fresh air to Bull, rekindling an excitement for the job he hadn’t experienced in years.
He glanced at Tyler in the rear-view mirror. He looked younger than his thirty-one years. At six-foot-four, Tyler was a big man. He had a sharp mind and a quick wit. He had been married once, Bull knew, but his wife had been intolerant of his work, and unwilling to accept the risks that he sometimes took. Predictably, it hadn’t worked out.
Steve Bull approved of the way that Tyler handled people. He was patient and fair but he refused to accept slackness from his staff. On his team, everyone pulled their weight or Tyler pulled them. Like Steve Bull, Jack Tyler was a product of the ‘old school’. His ‘do it to them before they do it to us’ approach was surprisingly refreshing in an age where most senior officers had adopted a softly, softly, ‘let`s all sit on bean bags and talk about this,’ attitude towards crime.
As Case Officer, Bull had been the first member of the team Dillon had called. The news that his day was going to be disrupted hadn’t pleased his wife. And he knew the boys would be annoyed when they woke up. They had made plans to visit the local park together for a Sunday morning kick around. Both of his sons played in a junior football league, and rumour had it that talent scouts for a big Premiership club were due to attend their next game. He had promised them they would fit in some extra practice before then.
Still, this was important work and someone had to do it. Besides, the extra money would come in handy. Having his weekly leave cancelled with less than eight days’ notice meant he would be getting paid overtime at double time today. He knew his family understood his sudden abstractions, even if they didn’t like them. Unlike Jack Tyler’s ex, his wife and kids were behind him all the way.
As the speeding car hurtled towards London he glanced sideways at Dillon. Now here was a real character, someone that you either liked intensely or couldn’t stand at all. With Dillon, there were no in-betweens. Detective Inspector Tony Dillon was a diamond in the rough; a down to earth person with simple, honest values. He would bend over backwards to help the needy, and he could be moved to tears by the suffering of others surprisingly easily. However, there was an aura of barely subdued violence about him, and when it came to a time for action Dillon was a man you definitely wanted on your side. He was six-foot-one-inches tall, with the impressive bulk of a power-lifter, and hands the size of shovels. Steve secretly thought that he resembled an overdeveloped gorilla. Dillon’s jet-black hair was shaved to a number-one cut at the back and sides, and the tight French crop on top of his head was brushed forwards and gelled. Unlike Tyler, Dillon could never be described as shy. He was always outspoken, and he could be brutally blunt. You always knew exactly where you stood with him.
After a while, the pleasant greens and browns of the suburbs were replaced by the drab greys of urban concrete. Inside the car they discussed the case, oblivious to the gradual changes in the surrounding environment.
There didn’t seem to be much to go on. The homicide sounded like the work of a ‘crazy’ to Dillon. Was that the case, or was it a skilful attempt to disguise the real motive for the murder, thus throwing them off the killer’s trail?
Could it be a serial killer? Tyler asked. That was the worst-case scenario, they all agreed. It would transform the investigation from a Category B into a Category A case. It would also explain the unusual level of involvement from Holland.
Bull switched the siren on when they reached Leyton, a dense inner-city area within the London Borough of Waltham Forest, and the noise it made effectively killed any further conversation between them.
Steve Bull was enjoying himself as he negotiated the car skillfully through the early morning traffic that was already starting to congest Lea Bridge Road; he rarely got the chance to have a proper blat on blues and twos anymore, and he was determined to make the most of this opportunity. He barely slowed down as they approached the humpback bridge from which the road took its name, and Jack felt his stomach rise and fall in quick succession as they shot over it. He also felt his head hit the roof as they momentarily
became airborne, and his spine compress as the wheels hit the ground again. “I want to get there in one piece if that’s alright,” he shouted irritably above the wail of the siren.
“Don’t worry; you’re in safe hands, boss. I’m an advanced driver,” Bull assured him proudly.
“The only thing you’re advanced in is age,” Dillon observed, trying to keep his forefinger in the right place on the page of the battered map book that lay open on his lap.
Tyler, sitting back and rubbing his head, looked out of the window and kept his thoughts to himself.
The Omega powered past Hackney Police Station in Lower Clapton Road. They turned left when they reached Dalston junction, and drove the length of Kingsland Road, finally emerging into the one-way system at Shoreditch.
Jack glanced over at Shoreditch Church, seeing little more than a blur thanks to Steve’s heavy right foot. For a moment, he was tempted to tell his colleagues that he had been christened there, but this didn’t seem like the right time for trivia.