No Time to Die_a thrilling CSI mystery

by Andrew Barrett

  Frustration. So, he guessed, that was part of her problem; it was a mental thing, a feeling she’d been cheated out of something because fate had thought it a splendid trick to play on her. The other part of the problem was Brian.

  Eddie was convinced of it.

  It explained so much. It explained partly why she was always so shitty with Eddie. It explained why she didn’t like being touched.

  Question was, what was he going to do about it; how was he going to help her? And knowing how very proud she was, would she even accept help, would she even admit to there being a problem?

  27

  — One —

  Today was a good suit day. Normally, Tyler wore jeans and leather jacket or a cheap suit if he was on collections – he liked to look the part but wouldn’t risk ruining a good suit with blood should things turn nasty.

  But today, he’d worn a good suit, one he kept for special occasions. Today was a special occasion. Today, he was going to nail Blake’s killer.

  ‘Paying by card or cash, love?’ She looked up at him and pushed her half-moon spectacles back up the bridge of her nose for the fifth time since he’d been in the shop.

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘She must be a special lady,’ she smiled at him from across the counter as she curled some pink ribbon and interlaced it with the roses.

  ‘How much?’

  The smile drifted away. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat. ‘Forty-five, please, love.’

  He slid fifty across to her and made a grab for the flowers before she could waste any more of his time with frilly bits that he didn’t ask for or want.

  ‘How about a card, dear, for your sentiments?’

  He sighed. ‘Okay.’

  She slipped a small card into an envelope and tucked it inside the paper. Then took the cash. When she looked up, the door was closing behind him.

  According to Google and Thompson, there were seven bookkeepers in the Castleford postal area. Hitting the sweet spot at the first attempt had a slim fourteen percent chance of success. But there was no other way to go about it, except trying them.

  Castleford had once been a mining town with a flour mill at its centre next to the River Aire. Of course, like everything else these days, the flour mill had gone, and Castleford was turned from a place of hard-working colliers and millers into one big shopping centre with a dozen pubs and a handful of nightclubs.

  Tyler parked at the kerb outside the first address that the satnav brought him to. It looked just like a council house. It was an end-terraced building with a regular front door and regular lounge window. ‘Fuck,’ he said. But reason suggested he check it out along with all the rest, because if he wasn’t thorough, he’d never find her.

  As he was about to step out of the BMW, a thought suddenly struck him. What if, after being raped, this Angela woman, this Angel666, had called one of her friends from work and told them all about it? He would be setting himself up for a fall then. And while this thought rumbled along the stony path inside his mind, a second followed it: she hasn’t called the police, so why would she call a friend?

  ‘That’s bollocks,’ he said. People were strange, and there was no telling what they’d do after being traumatised. Anyway, even if she had been raped, she might not call the police because as well as being a victim, she was now a murderer. There were no answers to these suggestions, and the thoughts became dust and left him as he climbed out and locked the car.

  Over the door was a small hand-painted sign proclaiming, AAB Bookkeeping Services. He wasn’t sure if he should knock, but he went straight in, forcing himself to look hopeful and happy, instead of hopeful and vengeful. It was a tough act.

  A middle-aged woman stared at him from behind a wide old teak-effect desk. ‘Help you?’

  ‘Oh, my name’s Blake, and I wondered if Charlie was about.’ He made no effort to conceal the flowers.

  She looked at him sideways on. ‘Charlie?’

  ‘She does work here, doesn’t she?’

  ‘No one by the name Charlie works here.’

  ‘Angela, her name’s Angela.’ He smiled, but it was painful.

  ‘Then why did you call her Charlie?’

  Tyler let the smile go; it was just too much work. ‘Does anyone called Angela or Charlie work here? Female.’

  ‘No.’

  By the fifth attempt, he was about ready to go home. Only Slade’s face kept him in the game; that, and the fact that the odds had now increased to thirty-three percent.

  He parked outside a rather more upmarket establishment than those before it. This had a full-length plate glass window with Williams and Collins Accountancy and Bookkeeping emblazoned across it in a fine gold font.

  — Two —

  ‘Kill me.’ Deep inside, it was all black. There was no pain anymore, but the blackness was cold, not comforting. The sparkle had withered and fizzled, and then it had died. It would never come back. The man had raped her, and he’d taken away the sparkle too. She had been a shy but bubbly kind of person two days ago, even a little dizzy at times, she would have admitted; but now she was a husk of blackness with no thoughts and no plans and no concept of life outside of the blackness.

  Nothing really mattered any more.

  ‘I did nothing wrong.’

  She had waited down by the stream until darkness had swept across the land, and then she had waited some more. Not for anything in particular, she was just afraid to leave her nest of bracken and the soft lullaby of the nearby stream.

  She had watched his motionless figure as it had slowly become invisible against the darkening hillside on which it lay; the light had faded, and the body was still there though she couldn’t see it. And she grew cold. And she became hungry and thirsty. And she was in pain. But she waited. Scared to move. She had walked back through Garforth and all the way to The Spinney Nook to her car at nearly two in the morning.

  And now she was home again, but it didn’t feel like home. It didn’t feel like anything. She had lain in bed for almost a day and a half, although she wasn’t keeping count. Her head peered over the quilt, saw the daylight fighting through the curtains and wondered again if she’d locked and bolted the front door. Somewhere near her feet, Panda kneaded the quilt and purred incessantly.

  Charlie kicked out, and the cat fled.

  Charlie cried again, and her stinging eye, the one she couldn’t see through properly, flared up with a raging heat again as the tears rolled. Her nose was bust, and flaking blood had set in the creases of her skin, and more of it lay in her bed; a reminder of the not so happy times with her one and only date in sixteen years.

  This was all Michelle’s fault. If she hadn’t told her to try a dating site, none of this would have happened; if she’d kept her damned mouth shut and her nose out of other people’s business, this pain she swam in wouldn’t exist. She would be planning what to do with the rest of her holiday from work instead of wondering if twelve paracetamol was enough to kill herself with.

  She didn’t think it was. And the tears came again. There was no cure for this.

  ‘I even drove to a pub. I wouldn’t let him know my address.’

  It wasn’t fair.

  How long would it take to die?

  — Three —

  Ros had looked so gaunt this morning that it was scary. ‘You’re a bit early for Halloween,’ Eddie said. Truth be told though, he didn’t exactly feel like a million bucks himself this morning either.

  ‘Up yours,’ Ros said.

  Eddie slid his chair across to Ros’s desk. She sighed and shoved aside the briefing notes for today’s fun and frivolity. ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean, “what”?’

  ‘What do you want, Eddie?’

  ‘I wondered if you were okay.’

  ‘I’m okay. I’m fucking wonderful. Now leave me alone.’

  ‘Wait, wait, hold on a minute.’ Eddie came even closer, bowing his head, elbows on the desk. ‘I thought we sorted out our troubles yesterday. Wha
t’s bothering you today?’

  Ros took a breath and turned to him.

  Her eyes were puffy; a thin film of water seemed to shimmer across them. He’d taken the piss before with the Halloween comment, but actually, she did look horrific. ‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t sleep too well last night.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do–’

  ‘Okay, listen everybody, please.’ Everyone looked around to see Jeffery standing in the middle of the floor. ‘New assignments for some of you today.’

  Eddie groaned, Ros sat still and stared through her monitor, elsewhere it seemed. Across the far side of the desk, James Whitely and the old geezer, Duffy, stared at him; James with his marine’s haircut that was, frankly, so unnaturally perfect that it must have been moulded that way and glued on, and Duffy resting his chin on a fist, eyes hovering somewhere near where Jeffery stood, but with no interest in them at all. Each blink, Eddie noticed, was longer than the previous one, until it seemed as though he were taking really short naps.

  ‘Gang shooting in Harehills. Indoor and outdoor scenes. And one vehicle scene. It seems to have centred around a cash machine robbery within a Turkish tearoom. When the gang exited, another gang was waiting for them, and they opened fire.

  ‘Outside the back of the premises, local CSI have found a vehicle in which there is a body. They also found a second dead male near the van, just outside the back entrance to the teashop, but I managed to convince them to tent it and walk away.

  ‘Around the front of the premises is a further scene. No body though because ambulance found a pulse and took him to St James’ where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

  ‘I couldn’t keep hold of the tearoom scene: that’s down as a burglary and so falls within divisional CSI remit. However, under Operation Domino, we have the van and the two bodies. Needless to say, if OSU finds anything of value as they search the surrounding area, I want us to be their first port of call for evidence, okay?’

  James nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’m on-call tonight, Jeffery, but count me in.’

  Jeffery smiled. ‘Ros, I want you to process the body in the van, then have the van recovered; James and Duffy will take the second body. When you’re done there, get round the front, I want shots of that scene.

  ‘Lisa Westmoreland will keep us posted of any developments, and I expect you to do the same. I have my phone if you need me for anything. DI Taylor and his designates will be exhibits officers. And I want full Niche compliance when you get back – we have to link in with division on this one.’ Then he looked directly at Eddie. ‘You’ll be on the other scene we spoke of yesterday, okay?’

  Eddie nodded.

  ‘You okay with that, Ros?’

  She just smiled at Jeffery, and that was all the response she gave.

  Then Jeffery stepped up to Eddie, leaned in closer. ‘There’s intelligence to suggest that the Crosbys killed Tony and his wife. The two brothers did it personally.’ He stared into Eddie as though making sure the penny had dropped.

  ‘Leave it to me, Jeffery.’

  — Four —

  Considering this was MCU, Eddie was shocked at how blasé they were about security. It wasn’t this slack even out at division. He walked along corridors and down the stairs into the foyer, looked at Miss Moneypenny for a second and then turned left towards the stock room and stores. He passed half a dozen people along the way, and no one asked who he was or where he was going. His ID card was jammed in his back pocket; he hated wearing it around his neck on a lanyard; damned thing kept banging into him, generally being in the way and annoying the shit out of him.

  Eddie took a right, slurped coffee from a flask and found the door marked “Store”. Next to it was a serving hatch and a small bell. Eddie peeked inside. All the lights were on, but there was no one at home. ‘Hello?’

  He waited, pushed the bell. ‘Hello?’ Nothing.

  He tried the door but found it locked.

  ‘Fucking great.’

  Eddie checked his watch. Almost ten, and he wanted to crack on with the scene, not stand here all frigging day looking at the carpet. He looked up and down the corridor, then he placed his coffee down on the counter and scrambled through the hatch like a burglar through a transom.

  In under three minutes, Eddie had found the aisle he needed, found the plastic storage box he needed and found the property he needed. All courtesy of a property number and a decent filing system. There was still no sign of a storeman when he got back to the hatch. So, he climbed back through the hole, grabbed his coffee and returned to the office to collect his stuff.

  Eddie had been given a blue Vivaro van. It wasn’t his own, but he was the only one who was ever going to choose it. And he chose it because it looked like a beaten-up piece of old shit that had escaped from a scrapyard. The aircon worked, and one of the electric windows did too, so it suited him fine. There was no police radio fitted, the tax disc was a real one, and the number plates were real too, not like the usual undercover police vehicles that still had the tell-tale signs. In the logbook, kept hidden in a tray under the driver’s seat, Eddie could see no one had driven this old girl in more than two months. And that more or less settled it for Eddie. This was his van. He liked it because no one else seemed to; a kindred spirit.

  It was kitted out in the back as an obs van; seats, blacked-out windows, and a small desk. In between it and the meshed off cab area was his kit storage space, accessed by a sliding door. It had his forensic kit, camera, laptop, foul weather gear and most importantly of all, coffee making facilities.

  Eddie climbed aboard and opened the window. He slid his shades on and lit a cigarette.

  Eddie hit the road, heading for Alwoodley on the north eastern tip of Leeds, in the heart of his old CSI division.

  — Five —

  Tyler made sure his tie was straight and walked into the office. It was the size of his dad’s living room, with three desks pushed against the wall and a mirror over the far side that reminded him of the old westerns where the town saloon always had a mirror over the bar. Except this one didn’t proclaim Jack Daniels as the new medicine, this one was a replica of the plate glass window. Next to it were twenty or so awards and certificates from some guild or another, telling potential clients what safe hands their accounts would be in.

  Still, he thought, it was a league above the last couple of dumps he’d been in.

  ‘Hello, sir. Can I help you?’

  Her name badge proclaimed the ginger-haired woman who sat behind a new-fangled desk with two flat-screen monitors obscuring the best bits as Michelle.

  ‘Well,’ he smiled his best smile, a cross between I-know-what-I’m-doing and I’m-very-shy-and-humble. It said, I am safe! ‘I wonder if I might ask if Angela works here? Angela…goes by the name of Charlie.’ He looked hopefully at her. Made sure she could see the flowers.

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Charlie, oh, yes, Charlie works here.’ She trailed off, eyes full of pink ribbons and yellow flowers and green bits. ‘Are you…’ she looked around and then leaned a little closer, smile on her face, ‘Are you the new boyfriend?’

  He smiled in return, ‘Well,’ he blushed, ‘I am, yes. This is quite embarrassing really–’

  ‘No, not at all–’

  ‘I lost my phone,’ he whispered, as though disclosing something horrific. ‘It has Charlie’s details in it, so I couldn’t ring her.’

  Michelle smiled at him, almost falling in love with him herself.

  ‘I knew she worked as a bookkeeper… So, well, I thought I might leave these here for her.’

  ‘Or you could just take them round to her.’ Michelle leaned forward to get a closer look at the bouquet.

  ‘No, he couldn’t.’ In the archway that led to a small staircase beyond the back of the shop, presumably to an upstairs series of offices where Scrooge and Marley worked, stood a short, dumpy woman who looked like she’d been stung by a whole nest of wasps.

  Tyler’s mood swung low as she stepped forwar
d. Michelle shrank back into her seat.

  ‘You may leave them here, and we shall contact her.’ She stared at Tyler and then gave a quick reproachful glance at Michelle. It was like a slap; Michelle turned quickly away.

  ‘Ah, that’s very kind of you. If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Nonsense, hand them over.’

  ‘Did you enjoy your date?’ Michelle dared to speak.

  ‘Oh, it was wonderful, thank you, yes. She’s a fantastic lady.’

  ‘She is! I knew you’d like her,’ Michelle stood again, broad grin taking up her whole face, hands clasped together as though in prayer. ‘And her hair, did you like her hair?’

  Fuck, thought Tyler. Whatever you do, don’t ask me what colour it was. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And the colour, what did you think of the colour? I chose it for her.’

  ‘Well, what can I say. It was beautiful, but I confess,’ he smoothed his hair, ‘I was admiring her face.’

  ‘Oh yeah, anything else?’ Michelle was almost, but not quite, cheeky.

  The fat prude cleared her throat, and Michelle recoiled again. ‘May we do anything else for you, Mr…?’

  ‘No, you’ve done enough, thank you very much.’

  ‘I trust she has your details?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, she does.’ His cheeks were aching, and then he looked at the flowers, a frown closing in, giving his smiling cheeks a break, ‘How long do you suppose they’ll last, I mean before they begin to look second hand?’

  ‘Difficult to say. I’m a vegetable woman myself.’ She stared at him. He felt decidedly uncomfortable.

  ‘Right,’ he said, backing towards the door. ‘Well, you’ve been most kind. Thank you very much.’

  Tyler turned and headed out of the shop, closed his eyes and took a deep breath once the door had closed behind him.