Detective Lucy Harwin 01-The Lost Children

by Helen Phifer

  It stopped and started again. Her eyes opened. Bollocks. The vibrating was close by – in fact, it was underneath her head. Lifting her arm, she felt underneath her pillow and pulled out her phone. She squinted one eye at the bright display. It was an unknown number, which meant only one thing. Fucking work.

  ‘DI Harwin.’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Inspector, but there’s been a serious assault on Cottage Lane. You’re the on-call DI?’

  ‘OK,’ Lucy said. ‘Give me the address, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Have you phoned DS Jackson?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector, although he didn’t answer so I’ve left him a voicemail. The address is eighteen, Cottage Lane.’

  ‘Thanks. Bye.’

  Lucy ended the call and reached over onto her bedside table for a pen to write down the address. She didn’t want to get out of bed; she was too comfy. Forcing herself to move, she threw back the duvet and swung her legs out. Thank god she’d only had one drink, otherwise she’d need a car to come and pick her up— Bugger. I haven’t got a car. It’s at the station.

  She grabbed her phone off the bed, went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face and brushed her teeth. Now she was a little more awake, she rang Mattie. He answered on the third ring, sounding rougher than she did.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wakey wakey, this is your early morning wake-up call.’

  He whispered. ‘Fuck off, boss.’

  ‘Oops, I forgot you had a date last night. Well, I’m sorry to break up your party, but we’re needed.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Did you not answer your phone to the control room when they rang you? You are a naughty boy. There’s been a serious assault; I’ve got the address. They want our expert opinion.’

  Mattie growled, which made Lucy laugh.

  ‘I love it when you’re angry. Now, get your arse into gear and come and pick me up please.’ The line went dead. ‘How rude,’ Lucy muttered. ‘Some people are just not morning people.’

  She looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was only quarter past eleven at night. This time it was her who let out the groan: she’d thought it was almost morning. No wonder Mattie was pissed off. She’d probably disturbed him and his girlfriend.

  Lucy got dressed, then ran downstairs to make herself a quick mug of coffee. Just as she was starting to sip it, there was a loud beep outside her house. She put the mug down and waved at Mattie from the window. When she got into his truck, she couldn’t help smiling at his rather scruffy appearance. His normally immaculately gelled hair was sticking up.

  ‘Do you know it’s an offence to beep your horn at this time of night?’ she said, smiling sweetly at him. ‘I don’t want you upsetting my lovely neighbours.’

  Mattie looked at her and shook his head. ‘I don’t care; if I’m up then everyone else can be. Anyway, it’s not that late.’

  ‘You’re such a grouch. You should be happy you get to spend more time with me.’

  He rolled his eyes at her.

  ‘So where were you?’ she asked. ‘It didn’t take you long to get here, so you weren’t at home.’

  ‘None of your business. Did anyone ever mention you’d make a great detective?’

  ‘Grouch. I’m going to start calling you Oscar. Right, chauffeur: eighteen, Cottage Lane, please.’

  ‘Who the hell is Oscar?’

  ‘No way! Don’t tell me you never watched Sesame Street when you were a kid?’

  The look on Mattie’s face confirmed that not only had he never watched it, he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  ‘God, you make me feel old! You must have had a deprived childhood. Oscar was a grumpy green monster that lived in a trash can.’

  ‘What the hell? Are you tripping, Lucy? Did you hit the old wine a bit too hard when I dropped you off?’

  She stuck two fingers up at him and began to watch out of the window as they drove in silence the rest of the way. When they finally turned into the street, which was lit up like a fairground with all the flashing lights, Lucy looked at him. ‘It looks as if no one in this street is going to get any sleep, either.’

  Mattie parked up behind the CSI van, which had just beaten them to it. Jack climbed out, lifting his hand to stifle a yawn. Lucy knew how he felt.

  ‘You drew the short straw?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Amanda did have a good laugh when my phone began ringing.’

  Mattie came and stood next to Lucy. ‘I don’t know how you two manage to work and live together; it would drive me mental.’

  ‘We don’t always work the same shifts, and to be honest, we don’t see that much of each other at work unless there’s a big job on, or you two are on shift. What is it about the pair of you that causes complete chaos in this normally lovely, peaceful town?’

  ‘Blame the boss,’ Mattie said. ‘It was all quiet until she started back at work two days ago.’

  Jack looked at Lucy. ‘Technically, I would have to agree with him.’

  ‘Hey,’ she protested, ‘he was the one that called me in early to come and see that body at the asylum. Don’t go blaming me.’

  Jack slung his bag over his shoulder and walked towards the front garden that Joe was pointing to. Lucy and Mattie walked over to join Joe. Mattie nodded at him, while Lucy began to ask questions.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Pizza guy got whacked on the head delivering pizza. It’s a pretty nasty wound.’

  ‘Where’s his pizza?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s no pizza. Did someone mug him for his pizza, or had he already delivered it?’

  Joe shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just assumed he’d already delivered it.’

  Lucy pointed to the house in front of them. ‘Have you spoken to the occupants?’

  ‘No, sorry. I didn’t want to mess the scene up for CSI.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll go and speak to them,’ Lucy said. ‘Although it’s a bit strange they’ve not come out, if you ask me. If this circus was going on outside my house, I’d be out here getting in the way and wanting to know what had happened.’

  Mattie nodded in agreement. ‘Or you’d be upstairs, curtain-twitching like a professional.’

  Lucy stepped into the narrow front garden and walked up the path to the front door, lifting her hand to knock. As her knuckles rapped on the glass, though, the front door opened inwards a touch. She pulled her sleeve down, and used her covered hand to push the door open a little further.

  ‘Hello? It’s the police.’

  Mattie was now standing behind her. ‘Do you want me to go in first?’

  ‘No, thank you, but I could do with a torch.’

  He handed one to her. She turned it on, shoving the door wide open, and the torch shone upon the body lying at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Mattie said. ‘Is she dead?’

  Lucy ran to the body. Bending down, she shone her torch on the woman’s face and noticed the tight ligature around her neck. The woman’s eyes were wide open and glazed. Lucy touched the woman’s neck with her fingers to feel for a pulse, then snatched them back. A flashback to the bodies of Natalia and Isabella lying dead on their living room floor filled her mind. She had to blink a couple of times to clear it away.

  ‘She’s a foxtrot, definitely dead,’ Lucy said. ‘It looks like she’s been strangled with a pair of tights. Get one of the paramedics to come and confirm the death, if they’re still around.’

  Mattie turned around. The first ambulance had already left, but another was about to drive away. He ran towards it, waving his arms.

  ‘Another casualty inside.’

  The driver cut the engine. Lucy, who had come outside, whispered into Mattie’s ear. ‘Naughty.’

  ‘I know,’ he hissed back. ‘But if we tell them she’s dead, they might not want to come inside. They’ll faff around and insist on a doctor. At least this way it will be quicker.’

  ‘Nice one, Sherlock.’
<
br />   The paramedic came running and Mattie stepped to one side to let her past. She took one look at the body on the floor, then turned to arch an eyebrow at him before bending down. Mattie began to whistle to himself, then turned away.

  ‘Have either of you performed CPR in the last ten minutes?’ the paramedic asked.

  Both of them shook their heads. She felt for a pulse and checked if there was any respiration. Taking a pen light out of her pocket, she lifted one of the half-closed eyelids to see that the pupils were fixed and dilated.

  ‘She’s definitely dead, but I’ll run a one-minute rhythm strip so I can say that I tried.’ She fixed the ECG pads onto the woman’s upper body, waited, then stood up again. ‘Sorry. I’ll go and fill out my forms.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lucy said. She began to relay the situation to the control room. ‘I can confirm we have a female fatality inside a property: number eighteen, Cottage Lane. The previously reported assault has taken place in the front garden of the same property. I’m going to need some more officers and an address check to see who the occupant is, please.’

  ‘Roger. On it right now.’

  Lucy and Mattie carefully made their way back down the garden path. Lucy pointed to Jack’s protective suit, and he nodded.

  ‘Help yourself; there’s plenty in the back of my van.’

  She stuck her thumb up at him, wondering what the hell had happened. They would need to wait for Jack to do his preliminary investigations before they could go back inside the house to properly assess the scene.

  Lucy’s radio began to ring. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Inspector, the only occupant listed for eighteen, Cottage Lane is a Ms Audrey Stone. We’re just running checks to see if she’s on our system.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Lucy turned to Mattie. ‘She was near to the telephone, her feet were facing the kitchen and her head the front door. That suggests she was trying to get away from whoever it was and they got her from behind. It looks as if the pizza guy interrupted the killer, so he then went after him.’

  ‘Oh, you’re good,’ Mattie said. ‘You’re very good. That’s why you’re the inspector.’

  ‘Why did the killer open the door to the delivery guy, though? Wouldn’t he just have ignored the knocking? Unless the victim screamed and he panicked.’

  ‘It’s too late for this, Lucy. My brain isn’t fully functioning yet.’

  ‘Or mine. We need to speak to the pizza guy. Have you got a name for him yet?’

  Joe, who was still standing nursing the scene-guard booklet, turned around. ‘Yes, he’s called Arnie Hope. Nineteen years old. A patrol has gone around to inform his mum that he’s been taken to hospital.’

  ‘Thanks. Right then, Mattie, we need to go to the hospital after we’ve finished here. He could be our star witness, and we need to establish exactly how much he saw. And if the killer finds out he’s still alive, what’s to stop him coming back to finish the job?’

  ‘This isn’t some television show,’ Mattie said. ‘Do you honestly think they’d bother their arses to go back and finish him off when they might get caught?’

  ‘Mattie, whoever did this showed no qualms about strangling an older woman and seriously assaulting a teenager delivering pizza. I don’t think they really care, do you?’

  Mattie muttered something and Lucy ignored him. He wasn’t good on no sleep. She remembered he used to be a miserable sod when they worked nights back on section.

  ‘I wonder how long it will take Catherine to get here,’ Lucy said. ‘At least it’s not her anniversary tonight.’

  Another car turned into the already overcrowded street, and Lucy smiled to herself. It looked as if they weren’t going to have to wait long – Catherine was already here. They were lucky in that most of the important people needed to attend serious crime scenes lived no further than fifteen minutes away. Brooklyn Bay was a popular choice for anyone who was tired of living in the city. It was such a lovely, quaint town to live in.

  As Catherine got out of the car, Lucy wondered if there was some connection between Edwin Wilkes and Audrey Stone. Both of them were old – too old to die such horrific deaths. Maybe she’d been a patient in the asylum, or maybe they’d worked together.

  23

  When Catherine had finished her preliminary examination of the body, and the initial house-to-house enquiries had been carried out, Lucy waved Mattie over.

  ‘We need to go to the hospital and speak to the pizza guy. Can you take me there please?’

  ‘He has a name, boss. He’s called Arnie. Although I think “pizza guy” sounds a lot better, to be fair.’

  ‘Fancy calling a young lad “Arnie”,’ Lucy said. ‘Poor bugger. I used to have a horse called Arnie.’

  Mattie began to laugh. ‘Poor fucking horse.’

  ‘He kind of suited it,’ Lucy said as they got in the car. ‘I was obsessed with the man himself during my early teenage years; naming my horse after him was my tribute to his great acting.’

  Mattie chuckled. ‘I can’t imagine you having a crush on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I would have thought you’d have been more of a Tom Cruise kind of girl.’

  ‘No way,’ Lucy said. ‘He didn’t have what Arnie had, and I could never fancy a guy who was shorter than me. I like my men big and stocky. Come on, our pizza guy might be ready to speak to us now. I’m thinking that there has to be some connection between our two victims. Two murders turning up in two days is very unusual.’ She felt the strange sensation in her stomach that normally signalled she was onto something. ‘I think this is going to turn into a nightmare of a job. Why me, on my first week back?’

  ‘Because you love it, boss,’ Mattie said. ‘And I know that if anyone can find the killer it will be you. If I was murdered, or someone in my family was, I wouldn’t want anyone else in charge of the case. As much as you’re a pain in the arse, you are very, very good. You give a shit and you don’t leave anything unturned. It’s you because this is what you’re good at, so don’t forget it.’

  Lucy turned away from him to look out of the car window so that he couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes. That was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard him say. He must be going soft in his old age, she thought. But it was nice to know that he still thought she could do her job after the last fuck-up.

  It had all gone horribly wrong that dreadful afternoon, and she’d ended up being suspended. All because the powers that be hadn’t listened to her. Even though she’d been officially cleared, it was always there in the back of her mind. Lucy had spent three months doubting herself and wondering whether, even if they cleared her, she’d be able to face dealing with serious incidents again. Up to now, though, she was holding her own, and for that she was thankful. She needed to prove to herself that she could do her job. There was no harsher judge than herself.

  They reached the hospital. Mattie parked on the double yellow lines, as near to the Accident and Emergency Department as possible. Considering it was the early hours of the morning, Lucy thought, it could still be daytime, the number of people milling around in the waiting area. Some were drunk, some were sober. There was a group of teenagers in a circle at the back, all fussing around a boy with his arm in a sling who looked no older than fifteen. Lucy would bet that their parents didn’t know where they were or what they’d been up to. Some sleepover gone wrong, no doubt. As she looked, for a split second she thought one of the girls with her back to her was Ellie. She had the same ice-blonde hair, and a green parka jacket just like Ellie’s. Then the girl turned around, and Lucy felt a huge surge of relief to see that it wasn’t her daughter.

  Mattie was chatting to the receptionist about the weather. Lucy forced her attention away from the teenagers.

  ‘So can you tell us where Arnie Hope is?’ she asked the receptionist.

  Mattie shook his head. ‘Please could you tell us where Arnie Hope is? She’s forgotten her manners; not a night person, are you, boss?’

  Lucy looked at him and
he pulled a face at the young woman behind the desk. The woman grinned at him, then turned her attention to Lucy.

  ‘Are you family?’

  ‘No, police.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to see some ID.’

  Mattie pulled out his warrant card, saving Lucy the embarrassment of admitting she’d left hers in her handbag, in her car, which she’d left at the station.

  ‘Thank you,’ the receptionist said. ‘I’ll just be a moment whilst I go and find out for you, detectives.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘You really need to work on your people skills a bit more,’ Mattie said. ‘Tonight, you seem to have forgotten that you possess them.’

  The woman came back.

  ‘Do you want to wait in the relatives’ room? The consultant said he’ll come and speak to you as soon as he can.’

  Lucy didn’t want to go and wait in the bloody relatives’ room; she wanted to go and speak to the kid now. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she snapped. ‘We know the way.’

  Mattie grabbed her elbow and led her away from the desk. He was clearly scared she was about to lose her temper. She snatched her elbow back from him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’m tired, and I’ve had enough of people who get in the way when we are doing our best to solve murders.’

  ‘We all have a job to do; that’s all it is, Lucy. It’s nothing personal, is it?’

  She slumped onto one of the chairs, letting out a sigh.

  Ten minutes later, the door opened. Lucy sat up, surprised to see the young doctor standing in front of her looking as flustered as she felt. All of her anger drained away. Mattie was right, she needed to calm down. The doctor looked at Mattie and nodded, then smiled at her, his face completely transforming into a warm, welcoming mask of compassion.

  ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Stephen King, one of the consultants working tonight.’

  Mattie sniggered. ‘The Stephen King?’