Selene: A disturbing DS Jason Smith thriller (A DS Jason Smith Thriller Book 6)

by Stewart Giles

  “Sorry to hear about the car,” Smith said. “It was probably a drunk driver. They probably didn’t even realise what they’d done. Anyway, we have a lot to get through.”

  He gave Thompson a summary of the information they had so far.

  “Chloroform?” Thompson said when Smith had finished. “Where did they get chloroform from? I thought it was banned.”

  “We’ve gone through that,” Brownhill said. “This is what we’re going to do. Thompson, seeing as though you’re a bit under the weather, you and Yang Chu can enjoy the warmth of the station and find out everything you can about Chloroform. Where you can obtain it - that kind of thing. Smith, you and Whitton need to get hold of the witness who saw Riley with the unknown woman. See if you can get a better description of her. Bring him in if you have to. Bridge, you and I are going to speak with Riley’s ex-wife. In my experience it’s those closest to the victims who tend to know much more that they think.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Snow had started to fall again when Smith and Whitton left the station. The thick flakes were settling on the tarmac in the car park. A thin layer had formed on the roof of Smith’s car.

  “Do you think it’s safe to drive in this?” Whitton said.

  “I don’t know,” Smith said. “I suppose we’ll soon find out.”

  He opened the car and they got inside. He turned on the windscreen wipers to remove the snow from the windscreen and drove slowly out of the car park.

  The streets were deserted as they drove. Smith could feel that the car was handling strangely on the slippery roads.

  “I had the weirdest dream last night,” he said. “I woke up after a nightmare, got up and went to the bathroom. It turned out that this was also a dream but I was aware of what was happening. I could even control what I did in the dream. I woke up again, this time for real.”

  “Wow,” Whitton said. “I’ve read about that. It’s known as a double awakening. A lucid dream. It’s very rare.”

  “Great, it freaked me out anyway. It’s never happened before.”

  “It’s supposed to be a form of psychosis,” Whitton said. “But we all know you’re not quite right in the head.”

  “Are you saying I’m psychotic?” Smith stopped the car outside Ye Olde Yeoman.

  “You’re a bit weird, but I wouldn’t say you were a full blown psychopath. What was the nightmare about?”

  “I’ll tell you another time. Let’s see if we can find out where our friend Bill is likely to be today.”

  Ye Olde Yeoman was closed. It was still two hours before opening time. Smith banged on the door. A few moments later it was opened by a young woman with short red hair.

  “We’re closed,” she said.

  “I know,” Smith took out his ID. “Sorry to disturb you but we’re looking for a patron of yours. A man by the name of Bill. We need his help in finding someone.”

  “You’d better come in,” the woman said. “I’ll get my dad.”

  The early morning atmosphere of a pub always made Smith feel melancholy. The smell of stale beer and the silence of the morning after was depressing. It didn’t matter where it was, pubs all around the world were exactly the same. A balding man with an impressive beer belly limped towards them.

  “Morning,” he said. “Shane Littlewood. I’m the landlord here. How can I help you?”

  “We’re looking for a man by the name of Bill,” Smith said. “Mid fifties - he may be an important witness in a serious crime investigation.”

  “Bill?” Littlewood scratched his nose. “That’s probably Bill Smithies. He’s always in here. What’s he seen?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Do you know where we can find him?”

  Littlewood looked at his watch.

  “It’s almost nine,” he said. “Bookies will be open soon. You’ll probably catch him there. Ladbrokes on Monk Street.”

  “Thanks for the help,” Smith said.

  The Ladbrokes on Monk Street was surprisingly full when Smith and Whitton went inside. It was still early in the morning but a large number of people, most of them men were crammed inside, gazing hopefully at the numerous television screens scattered around the room. Smith spotted Bill almost immediately.

  “Morning Bill,” he said. “Are you winning?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Bill sighed. “The nine-fifteen at Harrogate is about to get under way.”

  He glanced over at Whitton.

  “This is DC Whitton, can we have a word? It’s about the woman who was with Christopher Riley on Christmas Day.”

  “Can it wait ten minutes? I’ve got fifty quid on a sure thing. Twenty to one. Got a tip off a guy at the pub. Maggie’s Millions.”

  Smith laughed.

  “It’s got no chance,” he said.

  Twenty minutes later, Smith, Whitton and Bill Littlewood sat in the small coffee shop down the road from the Ladbrokes. Bill was fifty pounds poorer.

  “I was sure I was onto a winner there,” he said. “I stood to make a grand less tax.”

  “You win some you lose some,” Whitton said.

  “This woman,” Smith came straight to the point. “Would you recognise her again?”

  “Yes,” Bill said without thinking.

  Whitton looked across at Smith.

  “I have an eye for faces,” Bill said. “I’m terrible with names but faces I always remember.”

  “Great, in that case would you mind working on a photofit down at the station? It shouldn’t take long.”

  Bill had a faraway look in his eyes.

  “I was going to watch the ten forty five at Redcar, but I’ve got a feeling that this isn’t my lucky day.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Emily Riley lived in a three bedroom detached house three streets from the river. It was not one of the more exclusive properties where the new millionaires lived but it still belonged in the upper middle class bracket. Riley lived among doctors, accountants and lawyers.

  “How on earth did Christopher Riley go from this to renting a grotty flat above a Chinese restaurant?” Bridge said.

  “Divorce,” Brownhill sighed. “It’s never a pleasant thing for anyone.”

  “I’m never getting married,” Bridge said. “It’s the single life for me.”

  “We’ll see,” Brownhill knocked on the front door of number eighteen.

  Emily Riley opened the door immediately. It was as if she had been expecting them.

  “Hello,” she said sheepishly.

  She was dressed in a black tracksuit with some designer logo neither Bridge nor Brownhill recognised on it. She obviously visited the gym on a regular basis. Bridge couldn’t help but admire her toned physique.

  “Good morning Mrs Riley,” Brownhill said. “DI Brownhill and this is DC Bridge. Can we come in?”

  “Of course, but you’ll have to excuse the mess. The cleaner won’t be in until tomorrow. I gave him time off for Christmas.”

  Cleaner? Bridge thought, Him? Who the hell has a male cleaner?

  Emily led them into a medium sized sitting room. A small girl was busy working on a jigsaw puzzle in the corner of the room.

  “Maggie,” Emily said. “Go to your room baby. I need to speak with these people for a while.”

  “But the tiger’s face is almost done,” Maggie protested. “It’ll take me less than five minutes to finish the whiskers.”

  “Maggie.”

  The look on Emily’s face seemed to say more than any words could. Maggie put down the jigsaw piece she had in her hand and left the room.

  “She’s still confused about this whole business,” Emily said. “We all are. Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

  “No thanks,” Brownhill spoke for Bridge and herself. “Mrs Riley…”

  “Please call me Emily,” Emily said. “Mrs Riley doesn’t sound right. Especially after everything that’s happened.”

  “Ok Emily, I know this is a difficult time but perhaps you’ve had a bit of time to think now
. Can you think of anyone who would want to do this to Christopher?”

  “No, who would do such a thing?”

  “Did he have any enemies?” Bridge asked.

  “Christopher was a quiet man,” Emily said. “He kept himself to himself. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Brownhill said. “Why did you and Mr Riley get divorced?”

  “What’s that got to do with all this?” Emily was suddenly on the defensive.

  “We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can,” Brownhill decided to change tack. “I know what it’s like - my husband and I have recently divorced. I know how painful it is.”

  Brownhill’s openness appeared to work. Emily seemed to relax a bit.

  “I didn’t realise how hard it would be,” she said. “Chris and I met at University. We were inseparable from day one. I thought we were soul mates. I thought we would grow old together but things changed when Maggie came along. You always assume a child will bring you closer together don’t you? In our case it had the opposite effect. Chris loved Maggie, I’m not denying that but I don’t think he could handle sharing me with someone else. Do you have children?”

  “No,” Brownhill and Bridge said in unison.

  “You’ll understand when you do. Are you sure you won’t have something to drink?”

  “Coffee would be great,” Brownhill said.

  Emily stood up and left the room. Bridge looked at the jigsaw in the corner of the room. He was surprised - there had to be at least a thousand pieces and Maggie had started the puzzle from the centre.

  Emily returned with a tray off coffee and biscuits. She put the tray on the table next to Brownhill and Bridge.

  “Thanks,” Bridge made a beeline for a custard cream.

  “What did Christopher do for a living?” Brownhill asked.

  “He was some kind of computer programmer - don’t ask me what he programmed. All I know is he provided us with all of this.”

  She glanced around the room.

  “He used to divide his time between London and York,” Emily continued. “And it suited us all. His head office was in London and he was often away for a few days but as technology improved so his working life was supposed to improve - he was able to work from home more and more. That was when the problems started. We weren’t used to having him around and he wasn’t used to having us around. He started drinking more and more. He was close to losing his job a few times.”

  “And you’re a nurse?” Bridge wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, when Maggie started school, I went back to nursing. We don’t need the money but I wanted to do something meaningful with my time.”

  Bridge finished his coffee and put the cup on the table.

  “Mrs Riley,” he said. “Sorry, Emily, there’s something I don’t understand. You’re obviously not short of a few bob. How on earth did Christopher end up living in a pigsty above a Chinese restaurant?”

  Brownhill glared at him.

  “I’m sorry Emily,” she said. “My DC is not renowned for his tact.”

  Emily smiled.

  “It’s alright, he’s a Yorkshireman. I like it - it’s actually quite refreshing these days. Chris wasn’t broke, nor did the divorce cripple him financially. I think he was punishing himself. He was trying to ease his guilt by suffering.”

  “Guilt?” Bridge said.

  “He felt guilty for failing us. For failing himself. For a computer geek, he was a sensitive soul.”

  She smiled at Bridge and Bridge could feel his cheeks burn.

  “Thank you Emily,” Brownhill stood up. “Thank you for your time. You can be sure that we will do everything in our power to find out who did this. You have my word.”

  Emily led them out of the room. They met Maggie in the hallway. She stared at Bridge with a blank expression on her face.

  “Maggie,” Bridge said. “I’m curious. Why do you start the jigsaw puzzle from the middle? Surely it would be much easier to construct the frame first.”

  “Exactly,” Maggie said and went back inside the sitting room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Let’s get started,” Brownhill clapped her hands together.

  Everybody had met back at the station and they were now seated in the small conference room. Grant Webber had been asked to join them.

  “Grant,” Brownhill smiled at him. “Do we have anything new?”

  “Not much,” Webber said. “Time of death has been confirmed as somewhere between midnight and one on Boxing Day. Cause of death is loss of blood due to the deep laceration in his neck. He’ll have bled out in a couple of minutes. Most of the blood seeped into the bed sheets and mattress.”

  “So you were right?” Smith said. “He was killed while he was lying on his stomach.”

  “The evidence would suggest that, there was no sign of the murder weapon at the scene but we have a good idea about what was used and this is where it gets interesting. It wasn’t your everyday carving knife.”

  “What do you mean?” Brownhill said.

  “From the wound in Riley’s neck, it would appear that the knife had a rounded blade.”

  “Rounded?” Bridge said.

  “A straight blade,” Webber said. “Like the one on a kitchen knife for example, would slice open the neck evenly. The depth of the wound would be the same all across the laceration. In this instance, the wound was deeper in the centre of the neck which suggests a knife with a rounded blade. A razor sharp one at that.”

  “So we’re looking for an unusual knife?” Smith said. “That’s something at least.”

  “Right, I’ve checked the databases and we’ve never come across such a knife before.”

  “OK,” Brownhill said. “What about the chloroform?”

  “He was definitely out of it before he was killed. He wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  “At least that’s something,” Yang Chu said.

  “He’s still dead,” Smith said. “What about the hairs you found? The long black hairs.”

  “Nada,” Webber said. “They were definitely from a female - we managed to ascertain that but the DNA we pulled from them is not on our system.”

  “That brings us to the mystery raven haired woman,” Brownhill said. “What did your witness give us?”

  Smith started to laugh.

  Everybody looked at him as if he were insane.

  “Sorry,” he said. “But our friend Bill and his so called extraordinary memory for faces have let us down.”

  “What’s so funny?” Brownhill said.

  Smith took out a file and opened it up.

  “This is what the police artist managed to draw from Bill’s description of the woman,” Smith passed the drawing around.

  “But this is Baldwin,” Whitton said.

  “Yup, our main suspect in the murder of Christopher Riley is working at the front desk right now. Who wants to go down and arrest her?”

  “This is uncanny,” Brownhill said. “The likeness is uncanny.”

  “Aren’t we at least going to ask Baldwin where she was on Christmas Day?” Yang Chu asked.

  Everybody stared at him.

  “Yang Chu,” Smith said. “Our star witness is a gambling addict with a drinking problem or is that the other way round? Anyway, I don’t think Baldwin is some secret psychopathic killer.”

  The room erupted. Even Thompson had a grin on his face.

  “Ok,” Brownhill said after a while. “That’s enough. Thompson, Yang Chu, what did you find out about the chloroform?”

  “You can’t get it across the counter,” Thompson said. “Nobody uses it anymore. They used to use it as an anesthetic but the side effects were unpredictable.”

  “I did a bit of digging too,” Yang Chu said. “It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. You can get your hands on just about anything these days from bombs to slaves. Chloroform is available to purchase by mail order. Mainly from China and India.
The scariest thing I found out is you can actually make it yourself.”

  “Make it?” Whitton said.

  “I couldn’t believe it myself, there are over fifty videos on YouTube that guide you through the process. All you need is a simple still, a litre of acetone and a couple of litres of household bleach.”

  “Bloody hell,” Bridge said. “Surely that kind of thing should be banned from the internet?”

  “The internet is a useful but often dangerous tool,” Smith said.

  “A litre of acetone and a couple of litres of bleach will give you about fifty milligrams of chloroform,” Yang Chu continued. “That would be enough to knock out everybody in this room.”

  “I found out something interesting too,” Thompson said. “It takes quite a while for the chloroform to work. It’s not like you see in the films where a few drops on a hankie renders someone unconscious straight away - it takes much longer than that.”

  “Riley was very drunk,” Smith said. “He probably didn’t know what was happening to him.”

  “Right,” Brownhill said. “I hate to admit it but this meeting has left us no further ahead than we were before. Does anybody have any suggestions?”

  “What about the ex-wife?” Smith said. “We’re assuming the killer is a woman aren’t we? Nobody has dared to say it yet.”

  “We are,” Brownhill said. “Right now, the evidence leads to that fact.”

  “Say it.”

  “Christopher Riley was murdered by a woman,” Brownhill said. “Me and Bridge spoke to his ex wife and in my reason she had no reason to kill him.”

  “What about money?” Smith said. “The motive is always love, hate or money isn’t it?”

  “Emily Riley doesn’t need money,” Bridge said. “She’s loaded. Fit body too. I wouldn’t mind having a crack at her myself.”

  “That’s enough Bridge,” Brownhill said. “But it’s true - her ex husband looked after her very well. She had no reason to want him dead.”

  “Hate then,” Smith said. “Maybe he’d done something to make her angry.”

  “Emily Riley is not a suspect,” Brownhill said.

  “We’ve got nothing, everybody is a suspect.”