by David Carter
Marigold Lane was almost the last turnoff on the right hand side before entering the small and cute riverside town of Farndon. Just after lunchtime on a brightish November day, amid light traffic, as Karen turned into Marigold.
For the first hundred yards or so the road surface was made up in some kind of light coloured concrete, with small detached low build bungalows on either side, but once the bungalows came to an end, so did the made up road. The lane became nothing more than a track, and a pitted and rutted and narrow one at that.
Two distinct blackish tracts where the vehicles’ wheels ran, tough grass and weeds in the centre, and no room for passing anywhere, so it was just as well that nothing came up from the river. Lots of standing water everywhere too, evidence of the recent heavy rainfall, and the further down the lane they went, the worse the craters and ravines in the track became.
Despite Karen’s careful driving the new Volvo was bucking and jumping and swaying and creaking all over the place. A big test for a hardy new car, and the Volvo would handle it well, though they both wondered if it was doing the new suspension much good.
‘Steady!’ said Walter. ‘Slower!’
‘I am going dead slow now, Guv,’ and she was too, which meant progress down that long and twisty lane was tortuous, where one mile seemed like twenty.
A moment later, through the spindly trees, they could see a small blue Ford hatchback parked away to the right, and after one more turn to the left, another similar Ford, red this time, with a short buxom woman standing beside it, her hands crossed before her chest, and what looked like a large redbrick barbeque behind her.
‘Stop here,’ said Walter, and Karen did that, and they both got out and walked over towards Dorothy Wright.
‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ said Dot.
‘We’re here now,’ said Walter, as Karen completed the introductions.
The redbrick barbeque was nothing of the kind, but the old foundations where the caravan had once stood. It must have been partly hollow, for the crunched and crashed wreckage had mainly fallen and settled inside.
‘Have you touched anything?’ asked Walter.
‘Just this,’ she said, showing them a large diamond, the one she imagined had come from Ellie’s precious ring. ‘She never took it off, she couldn’t take it off.’
‘We’ll need to take that for examination,’ said Karen. ‘You’ll get it back.’
‘Okay,’ she said, as Walter held out a small plastic bag, and Dot dropped it inside. ‘I’m really really worried about her.’
‘Course you are, we’ll do everything to find out what’s gone on.’
‘Ta,’ she said, holding back tears.
‘Call SOCO,’ said Walter, and Karen jumped on her mobile.
‘So,’ said Walter, ‘tell me about your daughter.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
‘It’s a bit embarrassing.’
‘In what way?’
‘She wasn’t always a very good girl.’
‘The more you tell us the better, let’s go and sit in the car,’ and they did, in the front of her little Ford. Karen stayed outside, walking round the redbrick base, peering inside, sniffing, a slight but definite aroma of spirit, petrol or paraffin, wondering what had really happened, as Dorothy Wright poured her heart out to Walter in the car, about how Ellie had gone off the rails when her dad had left that day, never to be seen or heard of since, of how she’d flunked college, hated menial shop serving jobs, had fallen in with the wrong crowd, had taking up drinking and dabbled in drugs, and to pay for it, well, she’d started doing tricks for men, and women too, if the demand was there, anything to earn a handful of gold.
It wasn’t a pretty story, though not an unusual one in twenty-first century Britain, where a certain segment of society always appeared to slip through the gaps in the floor, and into hard times. But that wasn’t anything new either, as Walter was all too aware. It had been going on since Victorian days, and probably long before that too, and always would. There were always plenty of hopeless case people who simply couldn’t cope, and he doubted if that would ever change.
‘What’s your husband’s name?’
‘Tommy, Tommy Wright.’
‘And you don’t know where he is now?’
‘Not a clue, not a frigging clue, sorry, Inspector. Could be anywhere.’
‘And did Ellie have a boyfriend, someone special?’
‘Not really. She did knock around with a guy called Derek Nesbitt, but he’s a useless article. All talk and style but no substance. Vacuous Derek, I used to think.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
Dot nodded and coughed up the address.
‘Look, try not to worry, we don’t know anything definite yet.’
‘But the diamond?’
‘Maybe it fell out. They do that sometimes. Maybe she had burglars, could be anything,’ but the look on Dot’s suddenly lined face betrayed her innermost thoughts.
‘Come on,’ said Walter, ‘let’s go and join Karen.’
Back at the burnt out wreckage Karen said, ‘Petrol fumes?’ pointing at the blackened debris.
‘I thought that,’ said Dot.
Walter sniffed and nodded his head. He glanced at Karen.
‘Can you go and tape off the area from the bottom of the lane? We don’t want loads of people and vehicles contaminating the area.’
Karen nodded and retreated to the Volvo. Walter had wanted to say “crime scene”, but there was no crime. Not yet.
Five minutes later SOCO arrived, all young and keen, all white suited and booted within minutes, three of them in all, two young women and a slightly older man. Walter filled them in and they nodded and stepped to it.
‘Why don’t you go and sit in the car with Karen and tell her all about Ellie,’ suggested Walter.
‘I thought I told you everything.’
‘I’m sure there’s plenty more,’ and Walter nodded at Karen and over toward the little Ford, and Karen received the message and took Dot Wright’s arm and led her away, saying, ‘Tell me all about Ellie, what’s her star sign?’
Walter wanted Dot well away, for his suspected awkward discoveries would not be long in coming. In the meantime he checked out the ground. Lots of blurred footprints, fuzzed up by the rain, and quite a few tyre tracks too. Looked liked Ellie Wright had been busy, a popular girl, and that might make his job all the harder, if harm had indeed come to her, if she had a wide circle of clients.
He ambled back towards the wreckage. Lights had been set up, and a large white almost medieval looking canopy had been erected to keep any further rain off the site. Photographing was going on from every which way. The SOCO people didn’t seem to harbour any doubt, and ten minutes later the guy came over and opened his white-gloved balled fist and revealed a large tooth.
‘Female?’ said Walter.
‘Almost certainly.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Size mainly, I’d bet my pension on it. And I’d say it’s the tooth of a young woman. It’s in very good nick. And there’s more.’
‘Like what?’
‘Looks like a full skeleton. As you know, human bones are made of material akin to metal, they rarely burn away in a house fire.’
‘Oh dear. We’d better get a doctor down here fast.’
‘Thought you’d have done that already.’
Walter shrugged and gave the guy a look, and took out his mobile and rang Doc Grayling.
Five
Dorothy Wright never went back to work at the Cuppa Cha Café. She couldn’t pluck up the courage to face Shirley and Fred Ross again. She might have felt a little guilty about that, but surely they would understand. Instead, she took to drink. Dot had always enjoyed alcohol, but it became her sole release, and for a whole year she drank as if she’d just staggered from the Gobi desert.
The morning after the events at the foot of Marigold Lane the Chester CID team were in situ in the of
fice, waiting for Walter to start. Everyone was there. Karen Greenwood and Darren Gibbons, Hector Browne, Jenny Thompson, now a full time member of the CID team, and a new guy called Nicky Barr, a short slight bloke, and recently promoted from uniform. He harboured dreams of becoming the best detective Chester had ever seen. That could become annoying.
He’d replaced Jan the Pole, who had experienced a Paul on the road to Damascus moment, when suddenly changing career, from detective, to studying for the priesthood.
Jan the Pole was missed by everyone, but particularly by Jenny, for they’d briefly become an item, and though the rumour was that she was still seeing him, even though he’d been moved across the country to Lincoln, there didn’t seem much future in it, with Jan being determined to become a Catholic priest. It didn’t affect Jenny’s work, leastways that was what she said, but the powers that be were keeping a close eye on things.
Mrs West came out of her office and sat in a chair at the end and pursed her lips and nodded at Walter, and he did the same to Karen, and she opened the meet.
‘Ellie (Eleanor) Wright,’ and a recent image of Ellie Wright wearing a purple white trimmed dress that was a little too short for her, came on the screen. ‘Met her end in an old caravan at the foot of Marigold Lane by the river Dee, near Farndon. She was a prostitute with a wide client base.’
‘Lots of clients, lots of suspects,’ muttered Gibbons.
‘Maybe,’ said Walter, ‘but let’s hear the MO first.’
Gibbons pulled a face and nodded.
‘Accelerant was used to burn down the caravan. Probably petrol. The reports are in, but we cannot be sure if Ellie was already dead before the caravan went up. It was a fierce blaze and not a lot was left.’
‘Might she have done it herself?’ asked Hector Browne.
‘Fair point, Hector,’ said Walter. ‘Her mother was evasive to say the least, when we asked her about Ellie’s possible suicidal tendencies.’
Hector nodded and scribbled some notes, as was his wont.
‘Did she have a boyfriend?’ asked Nicky.
‘Lots of them,’ smirked Darren. ‘I would think.’
‘There’s a big difference between boyfriends and clients here,’ said Walter. ‘But they all have to be eliminated.’
‘Just coming to the boyfriend thing,’ continued Karen. ‘There was someone, or is someone, a guy called Derek Nesbitt. The mother didn’t think much of him.’
‘Remind us of the address?’ said Walter.
‘Flat 3B, 56 Easton Road,’ said Karen, glancing down at her notes.
‘Pay him a visit!’ snapped Mrs West.
Walter nodded and mumbled, ‘On it, ma’am.’
Karen again. ‘The location of the caravan was very remote, ideal from the perp’s point of view. A few bungalows at the top of the lane, but nothing close by, other than one or two other empty and disused shacks and caravans.’
Walter took up the thread. ‘Jenny and Nick, I want you to interview all the people who live in those bungalows. See if anyone saw or heard anything unusual. If you get nothing there, try further away.’
‘Sure, Guv,’ said Jenny.
Nicky grinned across at her and said, ‘Me and you, Jen, cool.’
Jenny looked anything but impressed.
‘Because of the remoteness there is no CCTV anywhere near the incident site,’ said Karen.
‘Saves us all day looking through it,’ said a relieved Gibbons, for more and more of his time was being taken up gazing at blurry CCTV images. Why the hell couldn’t they be better quality pics with twenty-first century technology?
‘We don’t yet know if this is a murder case, but it looks like it could be, hence our intense interest until proved otherwise,’ said Mrs West.
‘And with that in mind,’ said Walter, ‘I want Hector to go through all recent prison releases, see if there are any possible candidates we need to be checking on.’
Hector nodded and said, ‘Sure, Guv. Going back how long?’
‘Three months to start with, but longer if you have to, and all the usual suspects, Manchester, Liverpool, Shrewsbury, and all the newer prisons too.’
Hector nodded and scribbled notes, but didn’t look that impressed.
‘Shall I go and check on Patsy the mouth?’ asked Gibbons.
‘I was just going to ask you to do that,’ said Walter.
Patsy the mouth was the local street snout who kept his eyes and ears to the ground, and occasionally came up with intel that proved useful in exchange for the occasional banknote, and an easy life, when it came to his minor misdemeanours, or so he imagined.
‘Do that,’ said Walter, ‘and after you’ve done that go and speak to the local pub landlords closest to Marigold Lane. And don’t take any flannel from them. Ellie was known to frequent those pubs, probably picked up customers there, maybe even the odd member of staff too, so lean on them, and hard if you have to.’
‘Be delighted,’ said Gibbons.
‘Any questions?’ asked Karen.
‘If this is murder, what’s the motive?’ asked Nicky, glad to be the centre of attention again.
‘Could be anything,’ said Walter. ‘Robbery, vengeance, jealousy, dissatisfaction, unwanted competition, there’s five to be going on with, and by the way, Ellie was known to use drugs too, though not that seriously, according to her mother, so you can factor that in as an element as well. Where there’s illegal drugs violence is never far away, as you all well know.’
‘Gotcha, Guv,’ said Nicky, looking mighty pleased with himself.
‘It’s now a quarter to ten, I want you all back here by 5pm with your full reports. Clear?’ said Walter, looking at each of them in turn.
Karen added, ‘And keep Guv fully informed if there are any developments throughout the day.’
‘That’s it, get to it,’ said Walter, and everyone stood up and collected their coats, except Hector, who would remain behind, and begin trawling through prison records and recent releases, though thankfully a great deal of that info could now be accessed at the touch of a few buttons, courtesy of Police and Home Office computers.
‘Good luck team,’ said Mrs West in her shrill voice, before she stood and hurried back to her office, for she had revision to do for a promotion exam, and though it wasn’t recommended to do it while at work, sometimes needs must.
Ten minutes later, Walter and Karen were driving the short distance toward Easton Road.
‘What do you make of the new guy?’ asked Karen.
‘Over-keen, as per normal, but better that than the other way round. He’ll soon learn.’
‘Jen doesn’t like him much.’
‘I think anyone could see that!’ said Walter, as Karen pulled the Ford saloon to a halt outside 56 Easton Road. Walter stood out of the car and pulled his raincoat around him and buttoned it up. It was dry but overcast, and getting a bit nippy, a warning of the winter to come. He gazed up at the grey stone house, Victorian by the look of it, or maybe early Edwardian. A huge semi-detached property with vast and tall windows set on three floors, four if you included the spacious basement, a property that had clearly been converted into flats.
The front garden had been half-heartedly converted into a car park, not much more than someone had thrown down a few bags of gravel on the old front lawn. There were plenty of tyre marks, but only the one car, a smart yellow Cayton Cerisa. Most of the flat inhabitants were either out, or non-drivers.
Walter and Karen ambled up the grey stone path and tried the huge front door. It opened without a problem. No such thing as security locks at number 56.
‘3B you say?’ said Walter, looking at doors and numbers.
‘Yep, first floor by the look of it.’
Walter nodded and grabbed the handrail above the elaborate wrought iron balustrade, and followed Karen up the old stone stairs.
On the first floor landing 3B was facing them. Walter went to the door and in the absence of any obvious bell he banged on the black glossed tim
ber, loudly, but not threateningly loud.
No one came. Walter listened at the door. No music inside, no telly on, no people talking, no dog barking, no children home alone.
‘Try again,’ said Karen, and he did that with the same result.
‘Maybe he’s at work,’ said Karen.
‘Looks that way. Damn! If only we knew where he worked.’
The door to 3A suddenly opened and a smart woman in a yellow suit and wide-brimmed hat stood out. She looked at the strangers, half smiled and said, ‘Can I help you?’
‘We are looking for Derek.’
‘He’ll be at work now.’
‘You wouldn’t happen to know where he works?’ asked Karen.
‘Sure. He’s a floor manager at First Image.’
‘Gents outfitters,’ clarified Karen.
‘I know that!’ said Walter. ‘I am a gent, and I do buy outfits.’
‘Yeah, sure, course, sorry, Guv.’
‘You’re police aren’t you?’ said the woman, smirking.
‘Yes, how did you know?’ said Walter.
‘Oh every woman knows you now, Walter, you’re quite famous around Chester these days.’
Karen grinned.
‘Really?’ said Walter, unable to keep a smile from his face.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘No one would ever forget a man with an image like yours.’
Karen smiled and gave her boss the once over as if she had never really examined him before. Maybe the woman was right. A big black man with a head of unkempt grey hair, even in twenty-first century Britain there would not be too many Walter Darriteau look-a-likes strolling round Chester way, that was for sure.
‘He’s not in any trouble, is he?’
‘No, nothing like that, just routine enquiries.’
‘Ah, that’s what you always say, “routine enquiries”, if I know you, he’s probably mixed up in some gruesome murder.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Karen, picking up on Walter’s body language that he wanted the chatter to come to an end. But Walter surprised her by continuing the chat.
‘That your car downstairs?’
‘It is. How did you know?’
‘Only one there, and it’s yellow. Colour coordinated,’ and Walter glanced pointedly at the yellow suit and hat.