Dead Smart

by Stephen Puleston

  Dead Smart

  by Stephen Puleston

  ~~~~~~~~

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  Contents

  Dead Smart

  Stephen Puleston – some personal details

  Dead Smart

  Chapter 1

  Wednesday

  08.30 am

  Eddie Westford’s steel-grey hair, the consistency of blow-dried wire wool, cascaded around his shoulders passing the gaping, bloody wound that stretched over his neck. His jet-black beard had been carefully trimmed and clumps of wispy white hair were scattered over his chest. There must have been a lot of blood and looking down at him on the gurney in the mortuary brought to mind the disgust in the voice of the young sergeant who had reported the discovery of the body near the Cardiff City Stadium the previous evening.

  Dr Paddy MacVeigh, the pathologist, hummed along to some orchestral music thumping in his earphones. I caught the stale smell of second-hand alcohol on his breath, which reminded me that before I put my drinking days behind me colleagues would have made same judgements about me. I hadn’t touched a drop for over a year but the memories of when the bottle ruled my life still cast hard shadows over my mind.

  Once Paddy had finished his preparation he paused and gave me a smile of eager anticipation. I always liked to see a man happy with his working life. He tugged at the leads hanging from his ears and the sound of violins filled the air until he fiddled with the handset and the noise died.

  ‘Quite the specimen.’ Paddy’s Irish accent made the body sound like an experiment from a Dracula movie. ‘I don’t think I have seen a corpse with so much hair before.’

  I made an exaggerated gesture of looking at my watch. As the senior investigating officer I should really be in the Incident Room by now, especially as the cause of death was glaringly obvious.

  ‘Can we get on with this?’ I said.

  Paddy reached for a scalpel and made a deep incision in the body. Boyd Pierce, standing by my side, gave an uncomfortable cough and thrust his hand to his mouth. Newly promoted to detective sergeant he had a sensitive stomach at the best of times and I frowned at him hoping a silent reprimand would prevent the contents of his stomach reaching the mortuary floor. He gave me a weak shake of his head before leaving the mortuary seconds later.

  The post mortem was completed quickly enough and Paddy stood back and gave the corpse a satisfied, contented look before sighing.

  ‘Massive blood loss,’ he said, nodding at Westford. ‘It must have been a very sharp knife by the look of the wound. I might be able to give you a better idea once we’ve looked at it in more detail.’

  ‘When can you send me the report?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can later today but there’s a multiple fatality from the motorway I need to get to grips with and the coroner wants that dealt with as a priority.’

  I nodded and left Paddy before finding Boyd sitting in the pool car, head propped back against the restraint, the window open a few inches. He stirred when he realised I was standing outside. I leant against the front wing and lit a cigarette, the second of the day, and let the smoke fill my lungs as Boyd left the car.

  ‘I don’t do blood,’ he said.

  ‘It’s part of the job.’

  Boyd knew that every SIO should attend a post mortem and I wondered if he was cut out for working on a murder inquiry.

  ‘Give me time, boss.’

  I nodded and finished the cigarette knowing the investigation into a series of burglaries from apartments in the Bay would have to wait. There would be hundreds of passers-by and dozens of possible witnesses, which meant a public appeal for witnesses. We drove back to Queen Street as I mentally ticked off my ever-increasing to do list.

  12.30 pm

  ‘What do we know about him?’ I said.

  Boyd pinned a sheet of A4 to the board in the Incident Room with Westford’s name printed on it in a large font. He stepped back and pinned up another sheet that I recognised as the result of a police national computer search.

  ‘He works for the city council in their gardening department. And he’s got form.’

  ‘Really?’It should haven’t been a surprise that Westford’s violent death might be connected to a life of criminality.

  ‘He’s been involved in the Cardiff City Soul Crew. He was convicted five years ago and for a while was banned from their games.’

  The Soul Crew were a bunch of mindless thugs that enjoyed random violence inflicted on supporters of teams playing Cardiff City football team. They had been behind a number of violent assaults over the years and continued to be a menace to Cardiff and the police. ‘That must have rankled. Any family?’

  ‘He was separated from them, but he has an ex-wife and a child.’

  ‘Have they been informed?’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Family liaison are there now.’

  ‘We’ll need to build a picture of his life. Work colleagues, friends, family, money…’

  Boyd’s clean white shirt, neatly knotted tie and the navy suit jacket hanging from the coat stand suggested a determination to make faster progress up the ladder than I had managed. I admired his approach but didn’t share his determination. He had been working with me for a few months and already he had polished some of my rough edges. His telephone rang. A frowned creased the skin around his eyes. He caught me glancing at my watch so he finished up. ‘The family liaison officer assigned to Westford’s ex-wife thinks we ought to speak to her.’

  I thought about everything else I needed to organise. I needed to speak to the officers who had arrived at the scene; I should check progress with the crime scene investigators. Superintendent Cornock, my immediate superior, would expect a report and I needed to speak to him about an appeal for possible witnesses. I could feel my eagerness to make progress growing, but I knew I had to prioritise. The victim’s family were always the first place to start any murder inquiry, even when the family was estranged.

  ‘Tell her we’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  16.00

  The small terrace where Kylie Westford lived in Adamstown had a rundown feel. Nothing on the walls except peeling wallpaper in some corners, no personal knick-knacks in cupboards. Other than her name, Kylie Westford had nothing in common with her Australian namesake. Kylie Westford was at least fourteen stones with the build of a sumo wrestler and the dress sense of a gorilla. The shiny black leggings looked like they were about to burst, threatening to spill their contents all over the cheap sofa where she sat.

  I shivered at such a prospect and got back to asking her about her ex-husband.

  ‘When did you see him last?’

  She shrugged briskly. ‘Dunno. Can’t remember. Must have been when he picked up Hartley.’

  ‘Hartley?’

  ‘My boy.’ She beamed and some of the jowls around her neck quivered rhythmically.

  ‘How old is Hartley?’

  ‘Ten. He really loved his dad. Eddie took him to the football sometimes.’

  ‘Did he see Hartley often?’

  She blew her nose now using a tissue she extracted with thick fingers from a dainty box decorated with pink flowers.

  ‘Once every couple of months. Whenever there wasn’t a home game. He was a fucking shit father.’

  Boyd, sitting on a chair nearby, gave her a kindly look, the sort that wanted to be shocked by her cursing while sympathetic at the same time. I thought about my son, I hadn’t seen Dean for … I realised that I couldn’t recall. I couldn’t even
remember what he looked like. And I wondered if that qualified me for uber-shit father.

  ‘How is he taking it?’ Boyd tilted his head towards her.

  ‘He’s with my sister, Charlene.’ She nodded to the door from the sitting room to the rear of the property. I wanted to ask if there were any other characters from Neighbours going to appear but thought the better of it.

  ‘Do you know if Eddie had any enemies? Someone who might want him dead?’

  She curled her lips into a frown.

  Boyd added. ‘Or maybe someone he owed money to?’

  A shake of the head this time.

  ‘He was always short of money. He spent everything on supporting the Bluebirds. We never had a holiday. Never even a day trip down to Barry Island.’ She cast her gaze through the window. ‘Tell a lie. We had a weekend in some poxy French place when Cardiff were playing. The food was crap and nobody spoke English. I just sat in the hotel bar getting pissed.’

  ‘Does he have any other family?’ I said.

  ‘His mother got remarried a few years ago and went to live in Southend. And he’s got a sister, Janet.’

  ‘Do you have her contact details?’

  She reached into her bag and fumbled around before producing her mobile. Boyd jotted the details down in his notebook.

  ‘His father?’

  ‘Drank himself into an early grave. He was a lazy useless bastard at the best of times.’

  Happy families.

  ‘Did you notice anything different about Eddie recently. Did he seem worried?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Worried, Kylie. Like something was on his mind.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Was there anything different about him?’

  She fidgeted with her mobile. ‘He sent me selfies in the last couple of months. He looked a right idiot, smiling at the camera as though he was rich and dead smart.’

  I glanced at Boyd guessing he was thinking the same as me – that this was a complete waste of time. She thrust the mobile towards me and I looked at the pictures on her phone. I barely recognised the face of Eddie Westford. He had crooked teeth I hadn’t noticed that morning. But the smile was a temporary fixed grin forced for the occasion. I looked beyond him towards the cabin of the car he was sitting in. I couldn’t tell what sort of car it was but it looked expensive, leather seats and a glistening fascia. There were three photographs of Eddie in three different cars.

  ‘Did Eddie tell you where these were taken?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. He could be real knobhead sometimes.’

  I looked down again at the images. ‘Did he tell you who owned these cars?’

  She snorted. ‘Of course not. It was bound to be something to do with Cardiff City, though. He spent nearly all his time there with one thing or another.’

  When things seem out of place, the likelihood is they are and seeing him behind the wheel of an expensive vehicle ticked that box.

  ‘I’ll need copies of these.’

  Chapter 2

  Thursday

  09.30 am

  Boyd pinned three pictures to the Incident Room board before giving me a contented smile, the sort a newly married man would make at the prospect of returning home.

  ‘The first one is a Maserati.’ He pointed to the vehicle at the start of the line-up.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  Boyd’s smile turned into a smirk and he lifted a finger towards the inside of the cabin. ‘You can just about see the trident emblem on the steering wheel. I’ve made an appointment to see the local dealer tomorrow morning. Hopefully he can tell me which model it is.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘One looks like a Series 6 BMW and the other is probably one of those 4x4 Porsches.’

  I could see that Boyd was planning a trip around all the luxury car dealers of South Wales. Both German brands were commonplace in Cardiff where it seemed that everyone had a Series 3 BMW of some description. Before every home game the executive car park at the Cardiff City Stadium seemed full of expensive sports cars and on one occasion I’d seen a small group of men and boys gathered around a red Porsche 4x4 with matching red brake callipers exchanging fawning glances and no doubt technical information about its performance.

  ‘So why is Eddie Westford driving three high-end cars?’ Boyd stepped back from the board and for a moment we stared at the photographs.

  ‘Either they were stolen or …’

  ‘He was driving them for a friend?’ Boyd managed to sound unconvinced.

  The prospect that Eddie Westford had any friends who could afford anything more than a Ford Focus seemed remote. The logical explanation, maybe the only explanation, was that Westford was involved in the thefts of these cars. But Eddie was a low-end criminal – he would never be able to mastermind the theft of high-end cars in this way. Which meant someone else was involved too. But who?

  ‘I’ll get started on identifying car thefts in South Wales and you go and speak to Westford’s supervisor in the council.’

  Boyd nodded.

  I returned to my office and scooped up the telephone handset. The unit dealing with car thefts had been scaled down and eventually closed, and the morning passed in a flurry of activity as I tried to track down an officer who had been part of the squad. I spoke to an inspector I’d met on a training course who told me that as priorities had changed the unit wasn’t an effective use of police resources. Which was code for saying that the insurance companies could investigate themselves if they wanted, in the certain knowledge this sort of cut to policing wouldn’t get press attention.

  ‘You might ask Jack Collins in operational support. He coordinates the reports of car thefts.’

  I thanked him and rang off. Eventually I tracked down Collins, a civilian working in headquarters.

  ‘I need information on car thefts reported in Southern Division.’

  I heard the sharp inhalation of breath. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ I desisted from reminding Collins I was the police officer and that he had to understand the proper chain of command, ‘it is part of an ongoing investigation.’

  ‘Every theft complaint is referred to the nearest station.’

  ‘So there’s no central register?’

  More air sucked through teeth. ‘It depends. Sometimes it will be on the computer.’

  ‘When was the car theft squad disbanded?’

  ‘Two years ago.’

  ‘Who was in charge then?’

  ‘Inspector Robinson but he retired and the sergeant who worked with him got transferred on promotion to the Special Branch unit in Pembroke Dock.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Scott Baldwin.’

  Tracking down Baldwin proved a difficult task. Various telephone calls led me nowhere until a tired voice at the end of the telephone told me she’d put me through.

  Baldwin had the oddest accent I had heard, halfway between the rounded vowels of North Wales and the harsh sounds of a Cardiffian.

  ‘Can’t help you, Inspector.’

  I had wasted hours and I wanted to shout at someone.

  ‘You should try a search for car thefts…Mind you … That’s no guarantee…’

  ‘Is there nothing else…?’

  ‘Ah, well—’

  I rang off before he could give me another vague reply.

  I tried every combination I could think of to establish how many Maseratis and BMWs had been stolen in Cardiff in the past three months, getting more and more irritated with my lack of progress. Boyd could finish the task, I decided, as the uniformed sergeant who had discovered Eddie Westford appeared at the door of my office. An hour spent with him proved equally frustrating as he recounted his frantic efforts to gather witnesses from a football crowd weaving its way home.

  ‘I’ve got some of my lads taking statements from the stewards outside the ground but it could be time consuming.’

  ‘There must have been thousands of people in the ground.’
<
br />   ‘Just over twelve thousand. I checked.’

  I frowned. It was a poor attendance for a home game.

  He left soon afterwards and I sat back in my chair before reaching for my telephone and calling Alvine Dix, the crime scene manager.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘An update on the Westford killing.’

  ‘It was in the middle of the car park at the football stadium, for Christ sake. We’ve got DNA samples everywhere that we need to eliminate. It’s going to take ages yet.’

  ‘Call me when you have anything.’

  She started to complain again but I finished the call and left my office for a scheduled meeting with Superintendent Cornock knowing that I had to build a picture of every recent high-end car theft in South Wales in order to make progress. And we still had to build a picture of Westford’s personal life.

  Thursday

  2.35 pm

  Over a hurried lunch at my desk I watched the lunchtime news. Cornock had been as good as his word and a brief piece asked for anybody present at the football stadium with information to come forward. Boyd was stuck in the council offices being given the run around by a task I knew would have frayed my nerves so I headed to Westford’s flat. I parked and walked up to his apartment and let myself in.

  Standing in the hallway I noticed the scuffmarks on the wall and the skirtings grey with age. A stale smell of second-hand cigarette smoke hung in the air. The décor in the sitting room wasn’t much better. A two-seater tan sofa had been pushed against one wall and opposite was an old Lloyd Loom chair painted a vivid blue. I scanned the rest of the room. Everything had been painted various shades of blue: the walls, the ceiling, even the carpet was a shade between navy and sapphire. Draped on every wall were flags and scarves belonging to Cardiff City Football Club. As a season ticket holder, I counted myself a fan of the Bluebirds but not even I could have imagined the devotion Westford must have had for the team. Framed photographs of some of the greatest strikers who had played for Cardiff lined a shelving unit. Underneath were dozens of DVDs and videos stored in neat rows– highlights of various football games that Cardiff City had played.