Power and Control

by Robert H Wilde

  “No, err, no comment.”

  “Given this evidence, we are going to be charging you today with said harassment.”

  The accused turned to his lawyer. “Do something!”

  The lawyer looked at the letter in front of him, picked it up, read it carefully and asked his client, “I’m not sure I can on this one. We should have a private chat, but don’t expect much.”

  Atkins came walking out of the interview room like he’d just won a boxing match. Another one to tick in the win column, another case solved, and soon to be another successful trial. The CPS decided to prosecute in minutes; there was no getting away from the evidence. Awesome stuff.

  As he walked, he saw DCI Wick, so Atkins made sure the senior officer saw the smile on his face.

  “You look like you’re having a good day Atkins,” Wick noted.

  “Yep. Just nailed a guy on a harassment case. Some innovative policing going on.”

  Wick nodded, pleased to see an officer clearly happy, “well done.”

  “Maybe I’ll get into the MCU soon,” Atkins said, deliberately taking the DCI’s temperature on that.

  “You never know, you never know, but it’s good to have ambitions. Keep smiling!”

  Atkins walked past. The DCI said it was good to have ambitions! That must be a sign of support. He might get into the MCU! No more letters, actual murderers to arrest.

  Atkins got to his desk and pondered. Successful case, paperwork needed doing, but he could definitely go for a bit of a break. That was why he went to his car and drove to the nearest drive through, where he ordered a large milkshake, a burger and parked up to eat it.

  He took a sip of the thick, milky chocolate and grinned, before pulling his phone out to see what he could bet on in the next few minutes. There was always sport on somewhere in the world and his bookmakers were connected to it all. He soon found a suitable game, finishing in fifteen minutes and currently scoreless, so he did a quick bit of googling and whacked a few quid on for a goal. Then he waited, watched and idly wondered what his next case would be?

  “Well Susan, I bet you are sat there thinking my golly gosh, I, DI Sharma have just spent a long time setting up a white board. Do we really need all these things written on it in fastidiously neat hand-writing?”

  “Err no…”

  “But Susan, care in an investigation comes from the top down. If your white board is organised, so you will be organised, and so will be your work. I feel we are now ready to go. I feel nothing major has really begun until the set-up is complete.”

  Lindleman interjected “the last time I was told to take care of a set-up it was my four weeks serving in Costa.”

  Sharma was supposed to be elaborating on her careful procedures, and instead said “ask him why it was only four weeks.”

  “Why was it only four weeks?”

  “The bosses daughter kept hitting on me. I mean how little awareness can she have; she missed all my OGTs.”

  “Say what?”

  “Obviously gay traits. Thing is, she thinks, thought, gay meant being some camp cliché, and it doesn’t, and she didn’t believe me. I said, look, I’m flattered, but I like guys, and she thought I was insultingly putting her down. Made my life hell. So, I quit.”

  “He got sexually harassed,” Sharma added.

  “It happens to men too!” Lindleman protested. “Now if I was a sassy queer, I’d say something like ‘and then I fucked her brother, but he was ten so noooooo’.”

  “And this took an unnecessarily dark turn.”

  “Doesn’t everything?” Grayling noted.

  “Susan,” Maruma began, “the police develop a dark humour, the team in the Bunker especially. It’s just a group of people fitting together and using humour as catharsis. To the outside it might look callous, or lacking in seriousness, but I assure you, it’s just to get us through the day.”

  “When did you win a fucking Oscar?” Lindleman asked.

  “I have my graduation guest speech ready for when they name a school after me.”

  Lindleman laughed, “Your name will be on a school alright, but on the list of people to call the police if they see you, and that Susan is our sense of humour.”

  “Right,” Sharma said getting back on track, “time to give out some rolls. At the risk of being bloody obvious, I want Grayling and Maruma to pursue the CT aspect of this, and the suicides, and see if we can nail down who and when the church has been pushing this.” The DI turned to Susan, “if they have, no early conclusions here. Meanwhile, Lindleman and I will work on catching the killer, which means getting the motive and what’s been going on. Both of these paths cross with Edward Quince, so we will tackle that as a group, always one from each team.” Sharma again turned to Susan, “we find pairing detectives works best, even when you might cover more ground singly, and these pairings are tried and tested.”

  “Makes sense,” Susan said.

  “So, to kick this investigation off…” Sharma picked a purple folder off the table and waved it, so all four of the team and Susan were looking at it, “I have a report back from forensics.”

  “Awesome.”

  “So, Joshua Cribb. Cause of death was indeed suffocation, caused by a rope being wrapped round the neck. No other possible causes of death, although toxicology will take a bit longer, but the conclusion is he wasn’t poisoned he was strangled. The no sedatives conclusion is boosted by the fact Cribb clearly fought back, and I am very pleased to say we have not just his blood, but on his fingers, there was blood from whoever he was fighting when he died. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have the DNA of the killer.”

  “Yay,” said Susan, “so that’s easy now, right?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got the DNA? That’s like a perfect identifier?”

  Sharma shook her head. “Grayling, explain to your new assistant.”

  “DNA helps us identify people. But you need a sample to match it to. We can cross check the sample we have against the country’s database, but if the match isn’t on it already, we have the whole of Morthern as potential killers. DNA is a final piece of evidence, but on its own it’s no help.”

  “Unless they’re on the database?” Susan turned to Sharma expectantly. “Are they?”

  “Course they’re not, that would be too easy. And Grayling is right, we are looking for people from whom we can take DNA samples and compare, but we can’t swab a thousand church goers let alone everyone Cribb was involved with without a massive escalation of resources. So, old fashioned detective work. Find people lying, find clues, you get the drill. Now, bearing that in mind, we are going to start a search of the area round Cribb’s house. We want to find the rope, whatever did this,” she was still focused on Susan, “murder weapons can tell us a lot. Uniform will lead that; we’ll send some of us along for support.”

  “Do you have sniffer dogs?”

  Sharma did very well not to look baffled. “What Susan?”

  “To… sniff… I don’t know.”

  “We don’t need to go into the specifics of how you think that’ll help because we no longer have a canine unit, we share it with two other counties, and we are at the bottom of that list.”

  “Like the firearms unit.”

  “Yes, my advice Susan, is try not to get shot at, otherwise you’ll have one hell of a wait for support, they’ll probably have invented laser guns by the time they arrive. So, does everyone know what they’re doing?”

  “Same as yesterday?” Maruma offered.

  “Yes, yes, well you should have solved it by now shouldn’t you.”

  “Touché Mam, touché.”

  “Can I go on the search?” Susan asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Sharma agreed, “It’s dry, so we won’t get you pneumonia, and Lindleman, you go with her. Susan don’t hit on him. He might be a little gay.”

  “That’s what my husband calls it,” Lindleman replied.

  “Did you have to,” Sharma sighed.

 
“When they said something that could have strangled someone,” Kane said to his partner, “did they just mean a rope, or should we be looking for more.”

  “How so?” Koralova asked.

  “Well, if I was gonna strangle someone, and I’m not of course, but if I was going to…”

  Koralova decided to tease. “I had you down as someone who’d rather use your hands.”

  “Oh yeah of course,” Kane said, his masculinity pricked.

  “In fact, you seem the sort who doesn’t eat dolphin friendly tuna because if you were going to kill a dolphin, you’d do it looking straight into the blowhole.”

  “Err…” How did he follow that? What did that even mean? “Basically, there’s loads, isn’t there. You could use a belt. You’d need a good belt; I keep buying mine from Tesco and they break after a couple of months.”

  “Have you been tying up your girlfriend again?”

  “I walked into that. So, a belt,” Kane continued, “or a tie for curtains.”

  “I honestly didn’t think you’d know what a tie-back was.”

  “I am cultured you know, also my aunt had them and I spent a lot of time there as a kid.”

  “I see.”

  “So, ropes, belts, curtain stuff, maybe you could use stockings.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “No really, I’m sure in Agatha Christie and the like people got strangled with stockings.”

  “Firstly, that sounds like some bondage thing you’re secretly into, but fair play, each to their own, and secondly, they’d be better quality than I’ve ever owned cos they ladder if you breath on them, let alone roll around on the floor.”

  “Pardon.”

  “What’s that over there?”

  The constables walked over to a bush. It looked like any other bush, except there seemed to be something poking out of it.

  “I know Christmas is getting earlier every year, but that’s a shitty bit of tinsel,” Kane said as he peered at what seemed to be a cord hanging half out like someone had hurriedly shoved it in while running away at great speed.

  Koralova used a gloved hand to take the cord and pull it, only to find…

  A two-metre length, originally yellow but tarnished with a rusty colour where it might have dug into someone’s neck and friction burned the skin away.

  “Okay, let’s call this fucker in, it looks perfect,” she noted. “You could definitely strangle someone with this. In fact, there’s so much you could cut it in half and do two people.”

  “Don’t say that out loud, you don’t want the culprit getting ideas.”

  “Yes, because they are psychically linked to this cord, of course they are. You are not allowed to watch weird Netflix shows on your own anymore.”

  “Some nights it’s all I have.” Not actually a joke. “But damn, the stocking theory went nowhere.”

  “I have a feeling it will return when you’re alone and choking your chicken.”

  “Phew, I thought you were going to say wife.”

  “Now there’s an image.”

  “Excuse me, Inspector, but could I borrow you for a few minutes?”

  Sharma looked up. Wick was normally polite and softly spoken, but there was an air of desperation in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, I’m just looking for moral support.”

  “Regarding what?”

  “The PCC is coming in for a chat.”

  Sharma rolled her eyes in such a way that it was obviously over the top. The Police and Crime Commissioner was no one’s favourite person. “I’m busy,” Sharma replied.

  “We are all busy but…”

  “I’d rather drink battery acid than be polite to that useless waste of resources. The government would have been better sticking the Teletubbies between them and us.”

  “I don’t know who they are, but it sounds non-PC. Come on Sharma, come and support your DCI.”

  He could have ordered, he could have been firm, instead he chose to be warm. It worked, because they appreciated him, so Sharma followed him through until they were in the reception of the police building, the part civilians used when not being arrested.

  Then Hurricane McGovern blew in.

  She had a suit that cost as much as Sharma’s entire car. She had her hair done so not a single strand ever moved unless it absolutely had to, and she thought she was tastefully made up but looked like an 80’s cartoon. She always carried a black folder with her, but no one had ever seen her open it. Behind her a private secretary followed ready to take notes on what she said, and the man had a camera round his neck for those all-important press opportunities.

  “Ah, hello Detective Chief Inspector, and… you’re just an inspector, aren’t you?”

  Sharma resisted the urge to glare and just pictured a land-mine going off.

  “Hello, Theresa, nice to see you,” Wick said.

  “I’ve come to brief you on my new policy.”

  “Yes, yes, you want us to devote some of our budget to capturing illegal immigrants.”

  “Exactly, it’s what the people want you know.”

  Sharma was now picturing McGovern’s limbs landing all over the place.

  “So, did you get the document I had sent through?”

  “Yes, yes Theresa,” Wick confirmed and waved a print-out.

  “Good, then we just need a photo in front of the new poster.”

  “The… what…” Sharma finally forced out like a choking diner.

  “I am spending some of the budget on an advertising campaign asking people to report possible incidences of illegal immigration, such as people they see at restaurants.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Inspector, isn’t it wonderful!”

  Such was the PCC’s crowing, that Sharma gave Wick such a look of anger and contempt that he immediately said, “well you better get back to work Sharma.”

  “She’d be good in the photo shoot,” McGovern said.

  “Why?” Sharma said, “why exactly is that?”

  “Well…”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Sharma and McGovern were now staring at each other, but the PCC blinked, “yes get back to work, we’ll find someone else. Suitable.”

  “Thanks, have fun, both of you.”

  “Glad you could join us Karen,” said a young man who clearly had more on his mind than sharing Jesus’ love. Karen shook his hand and picked a space at the table, one that let her see the whole of the café as well as the people she was meeting. This was an informal gathering of like-minded people from the church, people she had begun to consider might just be friends. Her old crowd were long gone, lost during her madness and never visiting during her time inside the ward, but maybe this crowd would be a new circle for her. Certainly, everyone was being very nice, and hey, that’s like a pint of water when you’ve crawled through the desert.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” the man asked.

  “Oh, yes please, I’d love a skinny flat white.”

  “Decaf?”

  “No, no, regular is fine.”

  “Oh, wow, okay, you drink caffeine?”

  “Well we weren’t meant to have much inside, but now I’m out I’ve taken back to it.”

  “Excellent, one flat white coming up. Hey do you drink?”

  “No, well, maybe, I could do.”

  “Okay,” he walked away with the air of someone planning to get a drunken party going later and Karen missed it because she was feeling fuzzy about the group. Men and women of various ages, but mostly around her own, coming in and sitting around and talking, hugging, even praying.

  If you’d told Karen at any point in her life that she’d have found praying comforting, she’d have laughed at you. But not only did she find the prayers of groups a great peace, she’d begun praying at home. Admittedly, she hid it from her sister, because Susan would not understand. In fact, Karen felt apart from Susan, like they weren’t really sisters who’d grown up together, but we
re merely flatmates found in a newspaper column. The church was now increasingly her family, a concept Karen was okay with.

  “Here you go,” the keen man said, putting a drink down in front of her, “I got the barista to make a heart for you.” Slight pause to show he didn’t mean the next bit, ‘Jesus’ love.”

  “Ahhhh, thanks, that is so sweet.” And she found it sweet too. Attention, understanding, all after a ward where you were just bits of furniture to be stacked in different spots and forcibly painted with meds.

  “So, what shall we all talk about?” the leader said, in a completely low key, off hours social leader role, and in no way like an actual church group.

  “Has anyone ever tried online dating?” a woman asked, then quickly added, “not Tinder or anything horrible like that, but one of the Christian dating websites?”

  “That is a very good topic to discuss,” the leader said.

  “I’ve tried,” said the man who’d brought Karen a coffee.

  “Well, well,” she replied, “do tell us all about it.”

  “Oh, I will Karen, I will. So, you need a photo you see, and obviously with phones that should be easy but…”

  “Oh, hello there,” Grayling said to a man who only seconds before had been walking up the stairs to his flat.

  “I don’t want no trouble…”

  “I’m DC Grayling and this is DC Maruma, we’re not causing trouble.” She smiled, but his expression didn’t change. He still regarded them as trouble.

  “Can we have a word please? Just a few questions regarding an investigation.”

  “Yeah, yeah I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “Oh, we’re not accusing you, but did you know a Jonathan Stewart?”

  The man had been suspicious before, but now his back straightened, his eyes narrowed, and he looked nakedly hostile. “No.”

  “Okay, but you go to New Hope Church?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Again, we’re not accusing, we’re trying to explain why Mr Stewart killed himself. The thing is, we believe he was going through a process of conversion therapy at the church.”

  “Never heard of it. Not gay me.”