“Home Office.”
“And how far up in the Home Office?”
“Probably best if I don’t say that. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Hello there, I’m here to see the PCC, Mrs McGovern.”
“Oh yes, she is in the office today. Can I take a name?”
“I’m Detective Chief Inspector Wick, of the Morthern police.”
“Oh right, sorry I didn’t recognise you, have you been here before?”
Wick had driven to the office the PPC used, which was in a recently redeveloped office complex in an area of Morthern people were hoping would become trendy, but the gentrification was lagging a little behind. He had never been there before as he, like all of the Morthern police, avoided the PCC like she had a strain of plague which meant you shat your eyes out.
“Maybe,” he replied.
“I’ll just buzz her. Want a coffee?”
Which was why a door opened shortly after and PCC McGovern breezed in. “Hello DCI, what can I do for you?”
“I have an idea for you, err, Mam.”
“Mam is good, I like Mam, what is it?”
“Well, err, office?”
When they’d gone through and the door was closed, she said “go on.”
“Recently you asked my Detective Soloman Maruma to give an interview about diversity and race issues.”
“Yes. I think we have to be seen to be aware of such things. We must be modern and woke.”
“Right, good, because we recently had some people complaining about hate speech, and Maruma is currently working on that.”
“Good, good, it’s current.”
“Yes, so, I wondered if you wanted to launch an official campaign to tackle hate crime, ranging from youths on the street to the people we’ve received complaints about, some of the mayoral candidates?”
“Mayoral… as in running for mayor?”
“Yes. They’ve said some… things, and it would put us, and you, on the UK map if we went in hard and tackled criticism at all levels. Just imagine how it would look in Westminster. I mean, they don’t really like local mayors, they’ll be happy their police are keeping things correct.” Wick had pulled the pin and thrown the grenade, and now he waited to see if it would explode on the enemy or himself.
McGovern began to wave a finger in the air like a sorceress casting a world ending spell. “I like your thinking. It would be good to get acknowledgement from Westminster, Morthern is somewhat small and overlooked and these are very good points you’ve made. Now, I know who’s standing, because they obviously all want me to support them, and one of them is very right-wing. So… what I want you to do, Wick, is put together a dossier of what we can declare we’re going after, because you know the law better than me, you’ll know what a hate crime is actually defined as, and then I will work on the media side to get this thing launched. Good work Wick,” she finished in the manner of a woman talking to a dog who’d just brought her some slippers.
Wick nodded. That had gone exactly to plan. It happened sometimes.
The door to Morthern police headquarters opened and the receptionist’s sighed. Obviously, they made sure no one heard, but as Theresa McGovern marched through and towards them, they cried on behalf of whoever she was about to annoy.
“I am…”
“Hello Mam, pleased to see you again. Who can we tell you’ve arrived?” Because we need to get you out of here as fast as is humanly possible.
“I need to speak to the superintendent if that’s possible?”
“Harry Crix is in, so I’ll tell him you’ve arrived?”
“Yes please, I shall wait here.”
You could tell a lot about the power structures in an organisation by who came to who. Most people were summoned to see the Super, unless he had something to demand, in which case he came to you in a strange mixture of furtive and restlessness. But the PCC marched to her own tune, and if she wanted you to come you came to her, and if she wanted to make her way through the building she would, interfering all the way.
The Super came into reception with all the suppressed panic of a meerkat. “Hello, how are you today?” he asked.
“I am very good,” and then the PCC said the words no one wanted to hear, “I have a great idea.”
“Oh good,” Crix said with the suppressed distain of someone who’d just been told urine was tasty.
“We are going to start a massive campaign to counter hate crime. A massive one. We will contact the national papers and show we are taking a lead.”
“What, exactly,” he stressed, “do you mean?”
“I want hate crimes a priority for your officers. I want the reporting of hate crimes to be encouraged, I want people in schools and charities telling people what hate crime is so they know it exists and can tell us. I want the boy on the street who yells abuse questioned, I want the elite in their positions of power who preach abuse to be questioned, I want it stamped out.” She finished by grinning.
The Super had a comment and a question. He couldn’t say either. The comment was regarding the strange way the elites of the country made political capital by pretending they weren’t elites, but criticised others for being so. The PCC represented one of the many problems which prevented his force stopping crime, yet she railed against her kind.
The question? Had Wick had something to with this? Because now Crix had the PCC pushing to investigate people like the mayoral candidates, and he had the Home Office telling him not to, and it seemed like Wick’s professed desire to support his officers did not include letting his Super sleep at night.
“Well that’s good Mam, perhaps we could go to my office and you can give me specifics,” the Super said with a repression of genuine emotion only a man of his rank could achieve.
“Yes, let’s,” the PCC said with a confidence only someone with money could achieve.
“Are you scared?”
“What? What do you mean am I scared?”
Police Constable’s Koralova and Kane were scanning down a dimly lit road. It wasn’t meant to be dimly lit, but the lights had gone out and had not been repaired, so the two had torches lighting the way. In truth it was a nice road in the sense it wasn’t full of cars and people could drive up and down in their own lanes easily, and the houses were all pairs of semi-detached.
“I mean,” Koralova said again, “are you scared?”
“Alright,” Kane replied “I’ll be honest, I would be if I had to do this on my own. But I don’t have to, you’re here.”
“Good, I feel honoured.”
“Same question to you.”
“Same answer. Would be, luckily aren’t.”
“Yeah.”
“This is a new estate, right?” Kane asked.
“Yes, thought about a house here myself.”
“Isn’t this area famous for flooding? Before they built the new houses?”
Koralova laughed, “someone clearly doesn’t read the housing websites like I do.”
“Meaning?” Kane asked.
“They still flood now there’s houses. Lots of pissed off residents.”
“Well maybe that’s the scream that got reported.”
They both looked at the house in front of them. Semi-detached, with the house on the right having reported hearing a scream from the house on the left. The operator had advised the occupants of the house on the right to lock all doors and not go and look, due to not wanting anyone hurt, and so Kane and Koralova had been sent. Which was why they walked up a dark front path and assessed.
“So, we have a front door, closed. We have windows, all closed, and curtains drawn. We have a side gate, which is padlocked shut. Clearly no one went in through the front.”
“If anyone went in at all,” Koralova rang the doorbell. They waited, then started to knock on the windows. “Hello, hello, it’s the police.”
Nothing. No sign or sound of movement.
“Right then,” Kane said looking at the wooden side gate. “Looks like we’
re going in over this.”
“Don’t break it, we will get sued,” Koralova reminded him.
“Oh yeah, we will. We always do. Right, I don’t wanna be some medieval misogynist, do you wanna go first?”
“I’d rather you get sued.”
Kane nodded and carefully managed to boost himself up and land the other side of the gate. He stood there proudly before someone behind him hissed “move it lunk,” and then Koralova landed behind him.
They walked round the back, torches up, expecting problems. Amazingly to them, they picked out an empty garden, not just of hostiles but of anything, even plants. Just a square of lawn. They went around to the back door and found that shut too.
“Oh excellent,” Kane said. “Now we get to decide whether to break a window. I do love choices.”
“Okay, let’s think about this,” Koralova said. “A scream was called in. So, there is a chance someone’s in there dying, dead, in need of help, some of the above. We are within our duty to find out what’s inside.”
“Agreed. But you know what people are like.” Kane pulled out his baton and flicked it open. Then he smashed a pane of the door’s glass with it, reached round and opened it.
The entrance was dark, with a faint glow coming from inside. With his baton out Kane stepped inside and let his eyes adjust. It was a kitchen, belonging to someone who did not regard cleaning up as a priority. He flicked a switch and the lights came on.
“Well that’s one hundred percent less spooky,” Koralova nodded as she led the way out of the kitchen and into a hallway. There was only one way to go really, because only one door had light coming from the bottom. Even so, both constables shone their torches up the stairs to double check no one was going to charge down, and then with a nod Koralova pushed the door open and revealed…
A light filling the lounge. Two black sofas, an armchair of some bizarre dark pattern, a television which had flicked into standby mode and just shot out a red light. On the floor, a man lay.
The constables knew not to run, so they cautiously checked the room was empty then checked on the person. They confirmed it was a man, of about thirty, and his neck had a deep gash across it where the throat had been cut. There was a knife by the man’s right hand, and blood was on it, the throat, and the carpet.
And a sofa.
“Jesus, this guy became a fucking fountain,” Kane observed.
“Yeah,” Koralova replied, “I’m not the SOCO or anything like that, but I don’t think anyone moved the body, not without throwing a bucket of the red stuff around to make sure.”
“I’d never cut my own throat,” Kane mused.
“No?”
“No, look at it, looks agonising. I’d definitely jump in front of a train.”
“Okay,” Koralova replied, “I don’t like the way that sounds really thought through.”
“I… err… never mind. Well fuck, I guess we better call an ambulance.”
“Yeah tell them not to rush though, this guy can cope with a long waiting time.”
“We have to be here until they arrive,” Kane reminded her.
“Oh. I guess we could sit in the kitchen or something. I’m not in the mood for babysitting meat tonight.”
“Someone watched a zombie movie last night.”
“Someone fucking did, and that guy looks like he’s going to leap up and chew on me. Wait…”
“What?” Kane asked.
“Knife is by the right hand, right?”
“Yes...”
“So why does the cut go the other way?”
Kane looked at the body and then at her. “What the fuck do you mean?”
“I have been reading up. That gaping wound that’s hanging open was cut front left to back left. That is like the fourth choice for a right-handed knife holder.”
“I can’t tell if that’s genius or insanity.”
“Trust me, call the MCU. This is a murder.”
Four people stood round looking at a dead body.
“You see what I mean?” Koralova said.
Grayling nodded, “yeah I do. I have a few questions,” she turned and walked out of the living room.
“Well we’re here?” Kane said.
“Oh, sorry, I meant of the house. Yeah, now the front door has a lock on it, right? One of those chain things?”
“Err, good point,” Kane said having followed her.
“So, no one left through the front door, but if we check the back door…” everyone walked through the house, and they peered at the place Kane had smashed his way in and the mechanism to one side of it. “Right, this will lock after whoever left. So, if someone killed that man they left via the back door.”
“Oh,” Koralova said, “we have a name.”
“Yeah that’ll help.”
“He’s called Lech Klik.”
“Easy to learn in school,” Grayling noted. “No offence like, Koralova.”
“None taken. He comes from Poland. Came from. Is renting this property. Was renting this property.”
“Right, so…” Grayling pulled out a torch and headed out, “let’s go see the possible escape roots.”
“Eh?” Kane said.
Maruma took over. “If you come out of the back door, either you have to vault the side gate and escape to the front, or you keep going out the back.”
“There’s no back gate.”
“But there’s a fence.”
Grayling shone her torch on the brown wooden fence and found a bloody smear. “They jumped over this. Okay, that confirms you were right Constable, this is a murder, we need to secure this house and look around to see what’s in that garden.”
“Well fuck me,” Kane exclaimed. “Err, no offence Mam.”
“It’s okay, I am gorgeous. Right, you two hold it down here and wait for SOCO, we’re going to the other side.”
“We could jump,” Maruma said dripping with sarcasm. But he wasn’t looking at the rest, he was peering at the fence.
“Anything?”
“Fingerprints. Get SOCO out here before it rains.”
“Also, good job,” Grayling said, “they tried to fake a suicide and you caught it,” she did a salute as the pair walked off through the now opened side gate. They walked round the road and used maps on their phones to find the right property. Then they rang the doorbell.
A man opened it. Mid-twenties, one of those trendy beards and a fresh tracksuit off which the cleaning powder could be smelt.
“Hello, I’m DC Grayling, and this is DC Maruma, and we have reason to believe a criminal has been in your garden. Now we don’t want to alarm you, but we’d like permission to go around the back and investigate, and it would be best if you stayed somewhere safe inside for the moment.”
Maruma looked at the reaction of the man who opened the door, stepped back and sent a message on his phone.
‘Koralova, get SOCO to speed up the check on those fingerprints. The guy in this house did it.’
Morthern… Morthern… Jessica Villiers was sat in a car pondering. She wasn’t sure she wanted to make contact here and now, but she was drawn to what she was observing, the police rushing in front of her. She hadn’t meant to come out this far tonight, hadn’t meant to be where she was, but you couldn’t take the journalist out of the woman. Now she wanted to rush over, get a scoop, write the story up and have it on a desk by the morning; the old twitch, the old rush. But she had to remember she was pursuing a bigger case now, and these people might help, but they might only be tangentially related. Had to be sure before going in given the risk.
Still, she took a notebook out and started making notes on what she was seeing. As she wrote she saw movement in her peripheral vision. She’d perfected the art of looking one way but always being aware of what was happening around her, so she put the pen down and watched the woman come over to her and knock on the window. She wound it down.
“Hello,” said Grayling. “I’m a police detective, and I can’t help but notice you were
outside the first house I visited just now, and, err, now you’re outside the second. Would you care to explain that?”
“I’m a journalist,” Jessica replied.
“Oh. F, you’re fast, I didn’t know anyone had reported this. Okay, fair do’s, I’m not answering any questions.”
“That’s okay.”
“What’s your name by the way?”
“Jessica Villiers.”
“Well, good luck Jessica. Say hello to Susan for us.”
Villiers looked blank.
Grayling turned to walk away, and both pondered why this Jessica had never heard of Susan and was pleased at herself for setting that trap. Maybe journalism in Morthern wasn’t close knit.
Villiers watched as the DC walked away. That looked like a woman who had solved whatever she was investigating, which was interesting considering the speed. Yes, murders tended to either be solved quickly by people they… oh. From one house to one at the end of the garden. The killer did know them, sort of.
Still, Jessica couldn’t sit here all night. She wasn’t going to submit a freelance article to a local paper because she had to focus on her investigation. But Grayling certainly seemed like someone she could work with if Jessica took that decision. There was a cold stare from the detective’s eyes, a way of peering down her glasses at you, which said to Jessica that Grayling was serious and to collaborate hard, should it come to that. Something to consider. It also suggested Grayling wasn’t someone to be crossed, which meant sitting here following was a bad idea if she wanted to stay in the good books.
Car in gear, Jessica drove off. As she drove, she passed the police forensics’ vehicle arriving around the corner. Behind them, more police cars arrived, and an ambulance. It did not need to be in any rush.
Grayling walked away from the journalist’s car and pulled her phone out, dialling a number. It rang for a while, and the detective let it, before it clicked.
“Hello there,” Susan said.
“Hi, how are you?”
Susan laughed, “you wouldn’t have thought a mayoral election would be fun, but there you go. Plenty to look into and keep up with. How about you?”
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