Murder is a Tricky Business (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 1)

by Phillip Strang

  Her time in the office with Isaac and Farhan was brief, and she soon left. Farhan moved his desk to where it had been at the first opportunity,

  ‘Charles Sutherland? Who do we believe killed him and was it political?’ Farhan asked Isaac.

  ‘What did the two women he paid for say? Did they see anything?’

  ‘I’ve already told you.’

  ‘I know that, but we need to be sure about this. We are aware of a child, somehow important. We know of Charles Sutherland, who said he knew something. We have Richard Williams, who says he doesn’t know who the child is. If Williams doesn’t know, how would Sutherland?’

  ‘He must have overheard something,’ Farhan said.

  ‘If he heard Marjorie Frobisher talking on a mobile phone, that would be a one-way conversation, and she’s hardly likely to say the child’s name.’

  ‘It’s either a two-way conversation or she told him.’

  ‘If she wouldn’t tell Richard Williams, she’s hardly likely to tell Sutherland.’

  ‘What if she told Williams?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘If she did then it means two things.’

  ‘One, he lied to us and two, he’s a potential target.’

  ‘Are we conclusively stating that Charles Sutherland was murdered because he knew something?’

  ‘Who else could have done it?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘Christy Nichols, Jess O’Neill, Fiona Avers.’

  ‘They each had a strong enough motive: one he had forced to indulge in oral sex, another he attempted to rape, and the other was indulging in sexual intercourse with the man until her mother walked in.’

  ‘He was poisoned. Whoever it was, needed to get hold of the poison, know the dosage and get him stripped naked.’

  ‘All three of them could have got him naked. Fiona Avers is callous enough. I just don’t see Jess O’Neill and Christy Nichols doing that, do you?’

  ‘Jess O’Neill could if she was vengeful enough,’ Isaac replied. ‘What do you reckon to Christy Nichols? What do you know about her background?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Then you better find out. And what is it with these escorts? Why are you protecting them?’

  ‘I gave my word that I would keep their confidence for as long as I can.’

  ‘You know you will have to reveal them at some time.’

  ‘I hope that will not be necessary.’

  ‘You better hope for a confession from someone. That’s their only chance. I hope you explained that you can’t give a guarantee.’

  ‘I did.’

  ***

  With the pressure of work, Isaac just hadn’t had the time to devote to Sophie. He thought she was starting to become clingy, talking about moving in with him or him moving in with her. Neither option appealed and besides there was still Jess, although he had not seen her for some weeks.

  After the interview session at the police station, their conversations by phone had been few and far between and whereas the attraction remained from both parties, the easy banter, the repartee, the teasing, more from her than him, conspicuous by their absence.

  He had not dwelled too much on Farhan and his desire to keep the two escorts identities concealed, although it was out of character for his offsider. He had always been a stickler for following investigations by the book, but he assumed he had his reasons.

  Isaac reminisced that he was not faultless either. There were times when he had gone easy on a female witness if he thought they were not involved.

  He dwelt on a couple of occasions, especially one. Ingrid Svenson, a fair-skinned, fair-haired Swedish au-pair living with a family was clearly innocent of the murder of the man of the house, a solicitor by the name of Gregory Chalmers. He was a pillar of the society, a member of the golf club and father of three with an attractive wife. She was the youngest daughter of a minor aristocrat. She had come home one day to find her husband dead on the kitchen floor. A severe blow to the head with a heavy instrument; later discovered to be a large hammer. The fish pond in the garden, once it was drained revealed the location of the murder weapon. After the hammer, a kitchen knife, exceptionally sharp had been plunged into his heart. It was clearly murder and clearly someone with a motive.

  There was only one person, Ingrid Svenson. The wife, the Honourable Stephanie, the title as befitted her aristocratic background, said she was certain her husband was having an affair with the au-pair. She also claimed that she had wanted to get rid of her, but the children loved her, and she was indispensable. At least, that was what her philandering husband had said when he was alive. The first thing she intended to do, now that he was dead, was to get rid of the hussy.

  Isaac advised against it as she was a material witness and there was no proof that she had been involved. As usual, Ingrid made it clear that she was available. He was certain she was not involved, right up to the moment he received a phone call to tell him that the honourable Stephanie Chalmers had been found with a knife wound to the chest. The hospital informed him when he arrived that the wound had been minor, missed any vital organs and that the injured woman was asking for him.

  ‘It was her,’ she said. Heavily bandaged, a drip feeding liquids, while she was hooked up to a monitoring device.

  ‘Ingrid?’

  ‘Yes, her. She went crazy, accused me of trying to get rid of her. I only kept her because you said she was innocent, and I believed that cock and bull story about my husband; that he was always chasing her around the house, refusing to take no for an answer.

  He was a waster in many ways. I knew about him down at the golf club. They called him 20th hole Greg down there. The other men were downing the pints, and he was in the club captain’s office screwing his wife. I knew about that so I thought with your belief in Ingrid’s innocence and his past behaviour, that I should give her the benefit of the doubt.’

  Isaac realised then that he had erred and that it was not for him to recommend a course of action to anyone. He should have let the woman sack the Swedish au-pair. He had let his personal feelings interfere with his professional responsibilities and Ingrid Svenson into his bed.

  Five days later, Ingrid Svenson was picked up in Scotland. Isaac had the embarrassment of charging the woman he had been sleeping with. Richard Goddard protected him from disciplinary charges, kept his exemplary record with the police force clean. Further investigation in Sweden had shown that her name was not Ingrid, it was Charlotte Gustavsson and at the age of nine, she had stabbed her brother and killed him over a minor dispute.

  She had the face of an angel, the body of a supermodel (that never went into the official report) and voices in her head. Three days after her arrest, and with the officers guarding her subdued due to her pleasant manner, she hung herself from the bars in the prison cell with the sheet they had supplied her. Isaac never forgot, never spoke about it. As Goddard said, ‘You’re allowed one mistake; you’ve had yours.’ He felt that Farhan may be heading towards his first mistake. He intended to ensure he did not, but then, was he repeating the same mistake again with Jess O’Neill. He decided he had not. He had not bedded her, and he had followed police procedure to call her to the station to answer certain questions. No, he was sure he had acted accordingly, but he hoped she was innocent. Once this was over, he intended to ask her out.

  Chapter 24

  ‘DI Larry Hill, Islington police station. We’ve got a body. Police records show that you know the name.’ Isaac looked at the clock by his bedside; It said two a.m. Fully awake now after missing the original message, Isaac asked the caller to repeat.

  ‘What’s the name?’

  ‘Sally Jenkins, do you know her?’

  ‘Yes.’ One of the people he had been planning to interview, but never got around to it as he was too busy elsewhere. Isaac quickly dialled in Farhan.

  ‘It looks as if someone climbed in a window at the back of the building, forced entry, grabbed the woman and held her face down in the sink. Clear signs of a struggle,’ Larry H
ill said.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘14 Crane Grove.’

  It took Isaac three minutes to exit his apartment, another twenty minutes to arrive in Islington. It was early morning; the traffic was light. The road had been blocked off ‒ tape had been put across to keep out the neighbours, the gawkers and the plain nosey.

  Most were still in their pyjamas, even though it was a cold morning. Farhan had beaten him to the murder scene. Isaac could only reflect that he looked fresher than him, but he had not had to deal with a demanding woman and for him, bed made for a restful sleep, not horizontal gymnastics. Farhan meanwhile, clearly saw that his senior had been heavily involved that night; he was envious. He knew which woman he would choose given the opportunity, but it was an ongoing investigation complicated by another body. He knew it would be some time before he could call Aisha again, unless it were official.

  Farhan waited for Isaac to park his car. Then, they proceeded to the house, showing their identity badges to the uniformed constable standing outside. It was clear that Sally Jenkins lived well. The upstairs flat in a typical terrace house had been tastefully renovated in the last year, Isaac thought. The decorations were fresh, the television and stereo equipment, good quality. There seemed to be little in the way of food in the house which Isaac did not see as suspicious. He rarely ate at home. The bed, queen size, showed only one occupant. One side was neat, the other ruffled. It appeared she preferred to sleep close to the open window. It was apparent on examining the body that she slept in the nude.

  ‘Any signs of a sexual attack?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Forensics can tell you that,’ Larry Hill said. ‘From what I can see, I would say not. Apart from the bruising on her legs where she kicked out, it just seems to be death by drowning.’ He was a good looking man, late forties with the slightest sign of middle-aged spread. He had a healthy tan, clear skin and white teeth. Isaac had developed a knack of summing up people at the first meeting. Isaac saw him as competent. It sometimes annoyed Sophie, the few times he had taken her out. It seemed too clinical for her.

  ‘One man or two?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘I would say one,’ Hill responded. ‘It’s not that big in here. Two, they would have held her legs firm, stop her making a noise. Professional, I’d say.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Have you seen the body?’

  ‘Yes. I met her when she was alive. She was a good looking woman.’

  ‘That’s why I say professional. If it was an amateur, burglar for instance, and she was here naked, he would have almost certainly gagged her, sexually abused her, probably raped her. I don’t see how he would have been able to resist.’

  ‘You’re right of course.’ Isaac agreed with Larry Hill and turned to Farhan. ‘It’s become a whole lot more complicated.’

  ‘If Charles Sutherland was a professional assassination as well as Sally Jenkins, then Marjorie Frobisher is almost certainly dead,’ Farhan said.

  ‘You mean the woman off the television?’ Larry Hill had heard them speaking.

  ‘You were meant to hear that,’ Isaac said.

  ‘My wife watches her or, at least, the programme. She was a good looking woman, and you think she is dead.’

  ‘Larry, I would suggest that you forget what you just heard. People are dying as a result of her.’

  ‘Policemen included?’

  ‘Nobody is safe. Certainly not Farhan and myself.’

  ‘They said she used to play around.’

  ‘If you mean other men?’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘Larry, I don’t think we should discuss this anymore. We’ll be taking the case over from here.’

  ‘This is my case.’ Larry Hill saw his authority being usurped.

  ‘You’re getting yourself involved in something that could get messy.’

  ‘That sounds like a threat.’

  Isaac attempted to appease the man’s anger. ‘This is not the first body, almost certainly not the last.’

  ‘That’s my decision. I will conduct the investigation into Sally Jenkins’s death and keep you advised. The others you can deal with.’

  ‘We will accept your assistance. Find out what you can about suspicious people, how the window was opened.’

  ‘DCI Cook, I’ve been around a while. I know how to conduct a murder investigation.’

  ‘Apologies. We’re all a bit on edge. Your assistance is appreciated.’

  With no more to do, Isaac and Farhan exited the building. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. The previously eager onlookers had - bar a few - retreated inside and back to bed or to watch it on the television. All the major channels were in the street with their cameras focussed on the house.

  ‘What next?’ Farhan asked.

  ‘No point going home,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I need to have a shower and change. I’ll be there in one hour.’

  ‘Give me ninety minutes.’ Isaac realised he may as well take the opportunity as well to return home and take a shower. A murder scene gave him an uncomfortable feeling. A shower always seemed to help, as if he was washing the abhorrence and the sight of the dead body away.

  ‘Any ideas?’ Farhan asked as he was getting into his car.

  ‘We need to find this damn woman. She’s the key to this.’

  ***

  Cecil Broughton, the Station Master at Paddington Station, had seen the transition of the railways over forty years. He was still an upright man, close to retirement at sixty-five years of age, hopeful of a reprieve due to the government considering pushing the retirement age up closer to seventy. Wendy Gladstone liked him immediately.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said as she entered his office. It had a warm feeling to it, almost a relic of an earlier age, the walls adorned with trains through the ages, mainly steam. The paint on the walls was flaking in places and the carpet threadbare ‒ how he liked it.

  ‘Some people are taken aback when they enter.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘They expect the office to be modern and smelling of perfume.’

  ‘More like old leather in here.’

  ‘27th November 1965,’ Station Master Broughton proudly said.

  ‘I was just starting school,’ she replied, not fully understanding the significance of the date.

  ‘My first week here, pushing a trolley.’

  ‘Fifty years in the one place?’

  ‘I moved around over the years, but, I always intended to finish my time at Paddington. I remember that day well.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The last day a steam train exited this station, “Clun Castle” heading up through Slough, Swindon, Bristol, before terminating in Gloucester.’

  ‘Do you remember them all?’

  ‘Most, I suppose. Trains have been a passion all my life.’

  What the last train had to do with the smell in the office still eluded her.

  ‘It’s the seats,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon.’

  ‘That’s the smell. I retrieved them from the “Clun Castle” before they melted her down for scrap.’

  ‘You sound resentful of the trains today.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he reflected. ‘Brilliant technical achievements, just lacking in character. Anyway, you did not come here to reminisce about trains from the past, did you?’

  ‘Interesting subject, no doubt,’ she said, although the modern trains suited her fine. She had been on the occasional steam train, school excursions mainly, and she only remembered them as slow and exceedingly smelly.

  ‘You’re trying to find a missing person.’ Wendy could only reflect as she sat there as to what a marked difference he was to her husband. Station Master Broughton, a positive alert man in his mid-sixties; her husband, a few years younger, yet older in mind and body and bitter over his life.

  ‘We believe the woman boarded the train in Worcester headed to Paddington.’

>   ‘Are you certain?’ he asked.

  ‘She probably bought the ticket from a machine at the station.’

  ‘That makes it difficult.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘How to identify her. Do you know what she was wearing?’

  ‘We have a reasonable idea. We’re reviewing the tapes from Worcester Station. You have more cameras at Paddington, and people trained to watch the monitors.’

  ‘Major issue these days. No idea where the next idiot is going to let off a bomb.’

  ‘Any problems in the past?’

  ‘Not since 1991.’

  ‘February 1991. IRA, two bombs; one here and another at Victoria. No fatalities here, one dead at Victoria,’ Wendy said.

  ‘You’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘Probably not as good as yours. I was assigned to Victoria to assist in the investigation.’

  ‘It’s best if I take you up to our video surveillance department. You’ve time for a cup of tea,’ he asked. ‘British Railways has a great reputation for making tea.’

  ‘A tradition worth upholding,’ she replied. ‘I don’t remember the sandwiches with the same fondness.’

  ‘These days they come in a cellophane bag. At least they won’t be stale. Not all traditions are worth preserving.’

  The tea arrived, hot and milky, just the way she liked it, two spoons of sugar as well. She noticed that the Station Master sipped on Earl Grey and no sugar. She assumed diabetes but did not ask.

  ***

  The transition from the office through the heart of the station with its milling passengers and over to the surveillance department took less than five minutes. Station Master Broughton’s office had been nostalgic; the area she entered, was not. It was modern and efficient with numerous monitors showing all areas of the immense station.