Jane Hetherington's Adventures In Detection

by Nina Jon

  “Mac! Don’t…”

  What sounded like interference followed for a few seconds, then nothing.

  “What did you use, Mac? A knife? Tell us what happened?” one of the police officers asked.

  Stone looked over to his client who had started crying again. Stone looked at his notepad. On it he’d written:

  ‘Obvious blackmailer. Gross provocation. Diminished responsibility/manslaughter at most.’

  He thought his client would receive no more than three to four years maximum, but he didn’t write that down. Once he was left alone with his client, he’d advise him to deny everything initially, maintain the words recorded weren’t his, plead not guilty, and make an application for bail. There was more than enough time between now and the trial date, to plea bargain. His client’s career was over, given, but at least he could stop the lad from spending the next twenty years inside.

  “Can I speak to my client alone, please officer?” he asked.

  Left alone with his lawyer, MacCallum quickly scrawled a note. Stone picked it up and read it: ‘I wasn’t there! We thought – I thought – we were rehearsing a scene. I’ve been framed!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE BODY ON THE BEACH

  I

  The next morning Jane decided to retrace her steps from the night before. She intended to return to the road junction where she had passed Kim Moo-Hyun, but, as she was unfamiliar with the route, she drove herself back to the riverside where the steamboat was moored and retraced the fi rst part of her taxi journey home. When she reached the junction from which Mr Kim had pulled out and disappeared into the night, she turned into it. She continued along this road until she found a suitable turning point and reversed into it. Her car now facing the right way, Jane drove to the end of the road. From there she took the route that Mr Kim must have taken and quickly found herself in unfamiliar ter- ritory. She reached a roundabout and had the choice of three routes. If she chose the third turning, she would be heading back towards the steamboat. If she took the second route, she’d be heading away from Greater Fly- borough. This left the fi rst turning on her left. She took it. The turning took her past a row of shops. A tower block loomed into view. A tower block was just the kind of place that someone who wished to disappear might rent a flat in, Jane thought.

  She parked on the road outside the tower block and made her way on foot towards it. A group of teenagers were gathered in the tower’s atrium. The young men and women were all dressed uniformly in baggy, low-waisted, khaki trousers, hoodies and baseball caps. Despite this, Jane didn’t find the group at all intimidating, and went over to ask if any of them lived in the tower block.

  “We do, worst luck,” a girl replied, referring to herself and her sister.

  “I’m trying to find a Korean gentleman who I believe may have moved here recently. He’s a friend of mine, but I’ve lost his address.”

  “You the police?” one boy asked her, suspiciously.

  “No. The gentleman and I used to live near each other, but we’ve lost touch. We were quite close once,” she added, attempting to give the impression that she had once been romantically involved with her Korean friend. “All I know is that he rents a flat in Greater Flyborough. He’s quite easy to identify. He’s of oriental appearance, sports a moustache, wears an ill-fitting wig and is about the same height and age as I am.”

  The teenagers, all of whom towered over Jane, giggled at this.

  “The Koreans are not the tallest race on earth. Quite the contrary,” she said. “Well, if any of you should come across such a person, possibly one of you could call me on my mobile phone,” she said, passing a card which contained her name and mobile phone number out to each of the youngsters in turn. As she turned to leave, she noticed a floor plan on the wall. The tower block had a viewing gantry.

  “Would it be possible for me to get up there, to the viewing gantry?” Jane asked.

  “Yeah sure, it’s open to everyone,” one of the boys said. “I hope you see your friend,” he added, as Jane stepped into the lift.

  The glass-sided viewing gantry took up the entire upper storey of the block, affording anyone in it a panoramic view of the streets outside. Jane walked around the entire viewing gantry but did not see Kim Moo-Hyun from it. She could see the steamboat moored away in the distance, and a park close by, in which children were playing, and numerous people milling around on the streets below, but no sign of Mr Kim. Nor, she realised, was there likely to be. In fact she reckoned she could spend the rest of her life there, staring out at the streets below, and still not catch sight of Mr Kim, particularly as he had now taken to sporting a disguise. She gave a sigh.

  She couldn’t yet explain the car in the lake, the suicide note posted from South Korea, nor the body on the beach, but she knew what she’d seen. She’d either driven past Mr Kim the night before, or someone pretending to be him. This meant that either Mr Kim wasn’t dead, but he or someone else wanted to make it appear as though he was; or he was dead, but someone wanted it to appear as though he might not be. There was nothing for it – she’d have to go to the police and tell them what she’d seen, and let them decide what to do for the best.

  II

  The detective in charge of the Kim Moo-Hyun missing person file was thirty-five-year-old D.I. Alison Smith, a married mother of one son. D.I. Smith liked to quip that there weren’t any flies on her. She agreed to speak to Jane, who arrived at the police station less than an hour after leaving the tower block in Greater Flyborough. D.I Smith arranged for Jane to be shown into one of the smaller interview rooms where she joined her ten minutes later.

  “You see, the body on the beach might not be Mr Kim, not if he was alive last night,” Jane explained.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Mrs Henderson,” D.I. Smith said, once Jane finished speaking.

  “It’s Hetherington actually,” Jane politely corrected her.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Mrs Hetherington,” D. I. Smith replied, “but let’s face it, Mrs Hetherington, it was late at night, it was dark. You only saw the person very briefly, you said yourself you only recognised him because of a nervous habit he has when driving, and…”

  “And?” Jane asked, knowing full well that what D. I. Smith had meant was that Jane was no longer young and therefore was deemed unreliable. “I really would like you to follow up what I’m saying,” Jane persisted.

  D.I. Smith sidestepped the request.

  “We have a five foot five Korean man with a missing front tooth lying in our morgue,” she said. “The missing man, the one you maintain you drove past last night, is a five foot five Korean man with a missing front tooth. Just how many of those do you think there are in the whole of Britain, let alone in Hoven?”

  “A missing front tooth you say? Are you sure it’s the same front tooth that Mr Kim is missing?”

  DI Smith looked at her coolly. Professionalism prevented her from saying, quite sure thank you. You see, my husband donned plastic gloves and used a wooden spatula to pull back the deceased’s lips to see whether or not the body was missing the upper left incisor that Mr Kim is missing. It was! Instead she said, “I can assure you Mrs Hetherington that our investigations into Mr Kim’s death are continuing.” D I Smith’s words were spoken dryly.

  “But I’m not sure Mr Kim is dead,” Jane said calmly. “If he’s dead, why did I see him last night?”

  “We don’t know that you did. You saw someone who looked the way Mr Kim might look if he grew a moustache and donned a wig, and why would he want to do that?”

  “Can I ask whether you have formally identified the body?” Jane asked.

  “I’m not prepared to answer that question,” D. I. Smith said curtly.

  Of course you’re not, thought Jane, knowing full well that a body deposited on a beach by the sea after that length of time, would be so badly damaged that formal identification couldn’t be made immediately, nor could the cause of death be established without further investigat
ion. She knew there wouldn’t be any dental records with which to aid identification. Mr Kim Moo-Hyun had been left with a pathological fear of dentistry after the removal, without anaesthetic, of his front left incisor in Korea as a child by his highly eccentric grandfather. He’d told her this himself. She still cringed when she thought about it.

  This left either fingerprint or DNA matching the only identification possible. If the body had only just been found, there wouldn’t have been anything like enough time for this to have been done. The body therefore could not have been formally identified.

  Jane reflected on D. I. Smith’s words: “We have a five foot five Korean man with a missing front tooth lying in our morgue. The missing man, the one you maintain you drove past last night, is a five foot five Korean man with a missing front tooth. Just how many of those do you think there are in the whole of Britain, let alone in Hoven?”

  Jane was pulled back from her thoughts by D. I. Smith: “I’m sorry, Mrs Hetherington, but I really am rather busy,” the police officer said. She stood up from her desk and walked over to the door, which she held open for Jane. When Jane remained seated, D.I. Smith said, “Good day, Mrs Hetherington.” It was quite obvious she was growing more and more annoyed by the minute.

  III

  On her way home from the police station, Jane tuned into her local radio station. Some kind of press conference was taking place. The police were refusing to confirm or deny that a body found in the sea was that of Mr Kim Moo-Hyun.

  “Well who else could it be?” a journalist called out. “How many missing Koreans are there, let alone ones with missing front left incisors?”

  “How do you explain the suicide note posted from Korea when his body has just washed up on our shores?” a second journalist asked.

  “In his handwriting,” someone else said.

  “Your investigations showed him to have flown to South Korea. Did you think to check if he’d flown back again?”

  “Whether there any injuries on the body?”

  “The post-mortem will be carried out tomorrow,” the police spokesman answered patiently, “until then I’m unable to answer that question.”

  The questions came thick and fast.

  “Wasn’t his eldest son in Korea at the same time that so-called suicide note of his was posted?”

  “I’m afraid I’m unable to answer that question at this present time.”

  “It’s all a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “The body of a murdered five foot five Korean man washes up on our shores, who we were all told committed suicide…”

  “Murdered!” Jane said out loud. “Please don’t tell me they believe Kim Moo-Hyun has been murdered?” She was even more horrified by the words she heard next.

  “Is it true the man helping you with your enquiries is that eldest son of his?” a journalist wanted to know.

  “Seems to most people he’s got the most to gain and the most explaining to do,” another said. “He gets to take over the business doesn’t he?”

  “Who gets the insurance?” someone else called out.

  “Ladies and gentlemen this is the end of our question and answer session for the day,” the police spokesman said. “Thank you for your patience. We will call a second press conference when we have more information.”

  Jane pulled into the side of the road. She waited there until she was calm enough to continue her journey. Until the police established that the body lying in their morgue was not that of Kim Moo-Hyun, Mrs Kim would believe her husband not only dead, not only murdered, but murdered by his own son, her son. This was too much for anyone to bear, Jane thought. She only hoped she could help.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  MR KIM

  I

  Jane returned home long enough to pick up a yellow pages and a map. Jack stuck his head over the fence, when she re-emerged from her front door. He asked her what the police had said. “I’m afraid they didn’t believe me,” she replied. Jack stared at the yellow pages and the map in her hands. “You’re off to look for him again, aren’t you?” he asked, jumping over the fence and running over to Jane to join her at her car. “I’ll come too,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be a private detective. Charity won’t notice I’ve gone. She’s got other things on her mind.” Jane hadn’t intended to take on an assistant detec- tive so early on, nor one quite so young, but before she had a chance to say anything, Jack opened the passen- ger door and climbed into the car. “I thought you wanted to join the Navy, like your Dad,” Jane said, climbing into the driver’s seat and put- ting on her seat belt. “I might do both,” Jack said. “I might be in the Navy during the week and a famous P.I. at weekends, like James Bond.”

  “I think you’ll find James Bond was a spy, Jack,” Jane said.

  “Spy, private investigator, what’s the difference?” he said, with a shrug, putting his seatbelt on.

  “Please phone Charity and tell her you’re spending the rest of the day with me,” Jane said. “I don’t want her sending out a search party for you.”

  Jack did as he was bid, while Jane returned to Greater Flyborough.

  “I don’t know why the police don’t believe you, Jane,” Jack said, as the car reached the outskirts of Greater Flyborough. “Anyone who knows you knows if you said you saw someone, then you saw them.”

  They drove past a row of shops: a Portuguese café stood next door to a Halal butcher’s shop, and a shop window displaying a selection of bright silk saris nestled beside a supermarket. Jack wound down the window and put his head outside the car and scanned the streets. Although it was Sunday, the streets were busy. After a few minutes, he said, “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “We may need more than simply observation and perseverance, Jack,” Jane explained. “In the end we may need some good old-fashioned luck.”

  Jack turned to Jane and said, “You realise that if Mr Kim is still alive, then there’s a murderer at large.”

  This is what concerned Jane the most – if an unidentified murder victim was lying in a police morgue, who and where was the person responsible? On their way to Kathmandu most likely!

  The car Mr Kim had been driving when he disappeared was the blue Citroen, later to be dredged from the bottom of a lake. The car Jane had seen Mr Kim driving last night was a metallic gold Daewoo. Where and when did he buy this car, Jane wanted to know.

  “There’s a second-hand car salesroom in the vicinity of where you saw Mr Kim,” Jack announced, slapping the relevant page of the yellow pages, which were spread open on his lap. “Let’s go there first.”

  A banner proclaiming: BOB BUZZARD CAR SALES hung across the fence separating the car sales’ forecourt from the main road. The same words were written in red paint across the single-storey prefab salesroom set at one end of the forecourt.

  Bob Buzzard himself was in his mid-forties. Bob invited Jane and Jack into the whitewashed room. It contained nothing more than a counter, till, computer, some chairs, a vending machine and a drinking water dispenser. Jane had a story prepared: “The car belonged to my son, his father,” she said motioning towards Jack. “I sold it and he still hasn’t forgiven me, even though I told him I don’t know how many times if he didn’t get it out of my garage I’d sell it. You would have thought I’d sold this boy’s kidney the fuss he made! Anyway who ever bought it must have sold it on because I saw it parked the other day and your sticker was in the windscreen. If you could just let me know who brought it, we can try and buy it back again, can’t we?” she said to Jack. He nodded and grinned.

  Jane and Jack waited patiently at one side of the counter while, on the other side, Bob Buzzard studied a computer screen.

  “Oh yeah, I remember selling a gold Daewoo to an Oriental gentleman. He wore platforms to make him look taller. Took the Daewoo on sight. It’s a good reliable runner, but it ain’t popular with the punters, a bit down-market, if you know what I mean.”

  “Don’t let my son hear you say tha
t,” Jane said, getting nicely into her part.

  “He paid cash and drove it off the forecourt. Didn’t say much, like. I always try and have a chat with my customers, but he wasn’t interested in chitchat, like, so I didn’t press it. Yeah, here it is. Now I’m trusting you two ’cos there aren’t many grandmother and grandson crime teams like, but if he asks you, you didn’t get his address from me. Mr Sim, Leve Street,” he informed them.

  “Sim?” Jack said.

  “Sim,” Buzzard confirmed. “That’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid. No number. Now, can I interest you in a second-hand car?”

  Leve Street turned out to be a very long road, lined on both sides with large, three or four-storey terraced houses, most of which were sub-divided into bed-sits. There were probably about forty houses in total.

  “Where do we start?” Jane asked.

  Jack pointed across the road: “You start there, and I’ll start here,” he said, pointing to the first house on his left. “Meet you at the end of the road.”

  With these words he ran up the driveway of the first house, climbed up its front door steps to read the nameplate. The name Kim Moo-Hyun wasn’t listed as a resident, nor was the name Sim.

  “If he’s living there, his name’s not on the nameplate,” Jack announced, sprinting past Jane on his way to the next property.

  Jane wasn’t sure it was very likely to be, but nonetheless she crossed the road, to check out the houses on that side. One never knew he might be using a different name to either Sim or Kim, but one which was still oriental in origin. She thought she should mention this to Jack. As he was already quite far down the road, she called him on his mobile.

  “I’ll bear it in mind,” he said.

  Jane began her own search. According to its name plate, the first house on her side of the street had five occupants and one empty flat. Each name was protected by a plastic cover and next to each name was a buzzer. Some names were handwritten, others typed. Jane leaned closer to study it.