Scream Blue Murder

by Linda Coles

  Dupin nodded, stunned. Lyn had the common sense to stay quiet in the background.

  Amanda carried on where her DCI had left off. “So that means a thorough investigation, without you as part of it, I’m afraid. As of now, you’re under arrest until this is sorted out. By the book, remember. A man has died.”

  DI Dupin stared at his boss as the man read him his rights. By the book or not, it had suddenly become a good deal more serious all of a sudden. Amanda gave him a weak smile as he sat stony-faced, trying to comprehend all that was being said.

  Dead. The young man was dead. But how? Was he responsible? He was beginning to sound like Lyn with so many questions, he chided himself; he shook his head in an effort to dislodge them.

  “Do you understand, boss?” Amanda said.

  “Yes.”

  DCI Japp stood to leave. “I’ll leave you with Amanda, then, Laurence. I’m sure this is a formality, but until we know what we’re looking at for sure, as I said, everything by the book.” His moustache lifted at both ends over a slight smile that was probably meant to encourage. It didn’t.

  Laurence Dupin could think of better things to be doing than worrying about a manslaughter charge hanging over him.

  “I’ll see myself out,” said Japp, leaving Amanda to do the necessary.

  Dupin glanced at Japp’s retreating back and was reminded of the Grim Reaper. He only hoped his scythe wouldn’t swing his way.

  Chapter Seven

  Monday morning and Amanda was in the office before anyone else, a mug of steaming hot frothy coffee in one hand, a mouse in the other as she scrolled down a web page. It was the best time of the day to work without interruptions, and since Ruth had risen early for her run, Amanda had prized herself out of bed too. Once she was up, she was fine; it was the act of actually getting out from under warm covers that was the hard part. She’d been the same all her life, and at 42, she knew the struggle was something that would never leave her. The silence was broken by the sound of the coffee machine chugging in the nearby ‘cupboard’ kitchen, accompanied by a few choice aggravated words.

  Jack Rutherford had entered the building.

  She smiled to herself; it was impossible not to. They’d had the coffee machine for two years, and still it flummoxed him. Either he forgot the coffee capsule itself, making frothy milk with no caffeine, or he forgot to fill the water tank and no coffee erupted from the spout. By the sound of it, it was the former this morning—no coffee capsule.

  “It needs a capsule,” she shouted through.

  “All right. I know,” he yelled back, clearly annoyed with himself. Amanda sipped her own and then stood to peer around the door frame.

  “I can see you watching me,” Jack said testily.

  “Just browsing.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You’re in early for a Monday morning. Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Au contraire.”

  Jack was taking French lessons and now had a habit of dropping odd phrases into his daily routine for practice. “Slept beautifully, thanks. If you want to watch the sunrise, you have to get up to see it.”

  Amanda cocked her head. “Are you taking deep spiritual lessons now as well as French?”

  “Nope. But if you must know, I’m making more of an effort to fill my spare time with things other than work. Hence the lessons. And I’ve taken lawn bowls up again. It’s called broadening one’s horizons. You should try it sometime.” He raised his eyebrows at her. When his mug was finally filled with coffee and milk, he asked, “What are you working on so early?”

  “I’ll be filling the team in soon when everyone’s here, but you may as well know now. DI Dupin got into a scuffle at the scene of an accident yesterday afternoon; smacked the guy in the face, apparently. All was well when they parted ways, but not long after, the man died at his parents’ home. Dupin’s in custody.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Not the best position to be in. As yet, I don’t think the family are aware that Dupin was an off-duty police officer, but they will find out. Apparently, Callum Parker, the young man who was driving, hit an oncoming vehicle driven by an elderly gentleman. No one was badly hurt, but Parker tried to attack the old man, saying it was his fault. Dupin was out walking, saw the accident and intervened to stop the older man getting hit. He punched him. Parker fell, but got back up and was walking and talking. He was also a bit mouthy, apparently. He’d been drinking, but was just under the limit.”

  “How’s Dupin?”

  “How you’d expect. Worried, mainly, and embarrassed he’s in custody. And the shit pile that could fall down on him, as well as the station, when the press find out won’t help. All in all, a torrid time ahead.”

  “Poor old Dopey. I wouldn’t wish that lot on my worst enemy.”

  Amanda frowned at him. “Let’s stick with his proper name, eh? Keep it all friendly. I’m sure he could use our support right now. DI Dupin to us all from now on.”

  Jack mock saluted, adding, “Yes, boss.”

  The rest of the team slowly filed in over the next half hour, and a low chatter of conversation filled the room. Tales of the weekend, what was on the telly, the cricket results. Exciting times around the Croydon region for most. Still, it was better than what Dupin now found himself in, Amanda thought grimly. She called them all to order and broke the news. The gleeful, relaxed faces quickly turned serious. While no one particularly liked or respected Dupin, they were all concerned for their colleague.

  “The pathologist will know more when the autopsy is completed,” she said, closing her notebook. “Any questions?”

  “Who’s doing the autopsy?” It was DC Raj Atwell, soon to be a DS if he ever took his sergeant’s exam.

  “Faye Mitchell, I believe. And right now, she’s no idea who she is autopsying and why. This is just another sudden death to her. And that’s on purpose, so strictly hush- hush, right? All she knows is it’s her priority case first off this morning.

  “Also, DCI Japp will be in attendance.”

  The officers looked at each other in puzzlement.

  “I can see from your expressions I need to explain,” she said. “The doc doesn’t know, so she can’t be biased in any way. DCI Japp feels he needs to witness the process for that same reason, though it’s highly unusual, as you’ve already deduced. No doubt, the doc will wonder herself, but she won’t be told until after her findings.”

  Heads nodded sagely, and murmurs filled the air.

  “What can we do to help?” asked Raj.

  “Liaise with the traffic cops who attended, see what they can tell us. Until we know what we’re dealing with from the morgue, we don’t know if this death is connected to a simple traffic accident or not, but let’s be prepared.”

  Amanda wrapped up the briefing and doled tasks out to various officers; one by one, they split off back to their desks.

  Jack turned to Amanda and quietly asked, “What’s our next move?”

  “Well, that depends on whether Mrs Stewart made you a full English breakfast or not this morning. How strong is your stomach?”

  Chapter Eight

  Jack was wishing he hadn’t eaten the extra sausage; the faint herb flavour repeated in his mouth each time he stifled a belch. He also wished he was outside, alone, where he could get his wind up with one long, noisy gust. And he wouldn’t have to see Dr Faye Mitchell peel back the flesh of Callum Parker’s chest to get to his organs. The site of human intestines was making it a real possibility that his breakfast would be returning back up his esophagus. How anyone could perform autopsies on a daily basis he couldn’t compute. But someone had to do it. Of course, people said the same about his own job—being spat at, punched and kicked, as well as witnessing the macabre and horrific things humans inflicted on each other; it wasn’t a job for butterflies. He focused on a fleck of something on a nearby tile, praying his breakfast would stay put.

  “Everything looks about normal so far,” Dr Mi
tchell was saying, “but I’ll know more when I look at the organs in turn.” She turned to Amanda. “Tell me what happened again?”

  Amanda cleared her throat; maybe she was struggling too, Jack thought.

  “Callum here was in a collision,” she said, “and he later threw a punch at the other driver. He missed, but a passerby stepped in, there was a scuffle and the passerby hit Callum full in the mouth. That’s it.”

  Dr Mitchell looked at her quizzically; it was obvious she knew there was more to the story but wasn’t being told.

  DCI Japp took it up now, maybe to give himself something different to focus on for a moment. “The fiancée is now making a huge fuss, saying the passerby is responsible for Callum’s death, and the family appear to be gathering behind her.”

  Again, the doctor waited, but there was nothing else forthcoming. “Let’s crack on with it, then,” she said briskly. “And I can tell you straight away there is no sign he was hit in the mouth, nothing here that would lead me to believe that. I’ve noted the few superficial abrasions down the nose and chin area, as well as the bruising lying diagonally over the right lower neck. That’s from the seatbelt, I expect.”

  Japp looked at Amanda and Jack, but nobody spoke.

  Faye caught the look but carried on; she began to take the organs out of the chest cavity. Placing each organ in turn on the scales to weigh it and examine it, she said, “His heart is slightly enlarged, and his liver is fatty. These are probably signs of significant alcohol intake. The man liked to party.” She directed the photographer to take closeups for her records; the snap of the shutter was the only sound apart from their own beating hearts.

  With the organs taken care of, she prepared to open the top of Callum’s skull. “Hopefully the brain will tell us more,” she said.

  That sent DCI Japp fleeing from the room with his hand over his mouth. Jack smiled and Amanda glared at him. Faye raised her eyebrows and then returned to the task at hand.

  One detective down, two more to go.

  Jack and Amanda watched as Faye removed the top of the man’s skull, made a few deft cuts, and took the brain out.

  “The brain is full of blood. Interesting.”

  “How so?” asked Jack.

  “I’ll be able to tell you more later, Jack. You know I hate to speculate before the facts are all in. But this is interesting. I may get a colleague to look a little closer, just to be sure. He’s a whiz at brain pathology.”

  She busied herself once more with the autopsy. A taste of herbs filled Jack’s mouth again, and he swallowed hard.

  “Since Mr Parker here may have suffered whiplash, I’m going to remove the neck and accompanying arteries so I can do a more detailed examination on those parts specifically. I’ve a feeling that this, along with the brain, holds a clue to what happened to the young man.” She looked up at the two remaining detectives now and smiled; their faces were almost drained of colour. “It never gets easier for you, does it?”

  “It was the brain that did for me,” admitted Amanda. Jack gently nodded his agreement.

  “Well, there’s little for you to see now, so you may as well get some air. I’ll take a closer look at the neck and see what we find, and ask for my colleague to assist with his brain. It might be tomorrow before I have anything for you, though.” Faye smiled again at the almost motionless duo stood before her and urged them out. “Now, unless you want to watch me dissect in detail, go!” she said, flicking the fingers of both hands outwards as though shooing chickens off the doorstep.

  They didn’t need asking twice. As they fled out of the morgue and through the corridor of offices back to reception, Jack let out a resounding belch.

  “Jack!” exclaimed Amanda. “Gross!”

  “Well, it’s better than the alternative,” he said.

  As they rounded an aquarium full of tiny brightly coloured fish and stepped into the reception area, a woman at a desk screwed her face up with disgust.

  “Sorry—I didn’t know anyone was about,” Jack offered.

  “Clearly,” said the woman primly.

  “I’d better call DCI Japp,” Amanda said as they passed back out into fresh air. She dug into her bag for her phone.

  “No need. He’s still right here,” Jack said, pointing to the far end of the car park. As they approached, they could see Japp’s colour had reappeared, though he looked tired out.

  Even though it was an unspoken rule that you never ribbed your boss over something that could affect your own self, Jack went in and took the opportunity anyway; he wasn’t looking for promotion at his age.

  “You missed a trick in there, sir, when she took the neck out. Lots of dangly bits.” Jack mimicked the loose arteries with his fingers.

  “Ignore DC Rutherford, sir,” Amanda said, glaring at Jack.

  “I am,” Japp said caustically. His face had gone pale again.

  She went on, “Dr Mitchell might have something for us tomorrow. She wants a closer look at the neck and brain. Interesting, don’t you think, that there was no evidence of Callum’s being hit in the mouth? Has Melissa Ross got this wrong, I wonder? There was a scuff on his chin and bruising on his neck from the seatbelt, but the chin is hardly ‘full on in the mouth,’ as she stated. It’s a swipe on the chin.”

  DCI Japp let out a long sigh. “Well, let’s hope Dr Mitchell can fill in some gaps tomorrow. I could do with a proper night’s sleep.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You don't do yourself any favours, do you, Jack?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jack and Amanda were walking back to his car, having left DCI Japp looking at the view and clearing his lungs. At least his colour had returned.

  “I mean teasing him, dangling your fingers pretending they're arteries—he was as green as the grass on my back lawn. Why do you do it?”

  “Just for a bit of fun, and because I can. It doesn't matter to me. Promotion prospects and I parted ways many years ago. I'm not out to impress anybody.”

  “Well, if you want to keep your police pension and not get sacked before you retire, you might want to rein it in a little.” Amanda was always the voice of reason, Mrs Sensible. Jack unlocked the car and they climbed in; the air was thick with the trapped heat from the sun. He started the engine and pumped the air-conditioning button; the fan roared like a plane engine.

  Raising his voice over the noise, he said, “It's not that long ago that we didn't even have air-conditioning in cars. Do you remember that, Amanda?” Sunlight glinting off the roofs and bonnets of the other parked cars.

  “I’m not as old as you are, Jack. We didn't start our cars by cranking them with a lever at the front, either.”

  “Now you're being cheeky,” he chided. “Seriously, though, I remember what twenty or twenty-five years ago you had to manually wind the window down, never mind having air-conditioning. And my hair would blow all over the place,” he said, smiling and turning her way.

  She raised her eyebrows at him questioningly. “Was that during your rocker period, before you were left follically challenged?”

  “Harsh.”

  Jack pulled out of the car park and headed back to Park Lane and the station. They fell quiet for a few moments before Amanda spoke again.

  “Interesting, don't you think, that the doc said he hadn’t been hit in the mouth, whereas the fiancée specifically said he had been hit on the mouth?”

  “Maybe, but he was hit on the chin—there was evidence of that—and the chin and the mouth are not that far away. So maybe she just got it wrong in the heat of the moment.”

  “Maybe. She seemed surprised that the brain was filled with blood, though. That's not normal in anyone's book; even I know that,” said Amanda.

  Jack grunted, trying to shut out the image of Faye taking the top off Callum Parker's head. “She won’t be pushed for an opinion, though; not until she’s certain. There is no informal review with Dr Faye Mitchell—more’s the pity.”

  “Keeps her from getting i
n trouble, I expect. Anyway, let's see what she comes back with tomorrow. And I hope it’s good news for Dupin.”

  Traffic was building and a dirty halo of exhaust fumes surrounded the car now. Jack was glad his windows were up and the air-conditioning was finally cooling the inside of the car. He turned the fan down so he didn’t have to raise his voice over it again.

  “You probably wouldn't remember—it was way before your time—but there was a case many years ago of something similar to what's happening to Dopey Dupin now. It wasn't a police officer it happened to, but it was similar circumstances.”

  “Oh?” said Amanda.

  “I’ll have to get the case file out, but the guy went down for life. I thought it harsh at the time, I remember that, but it wasn't my decision; that was the judge and jury. But I often thought about that case afterwards because it seemed a bit rough. From memory, the guy was a bit of a rogue anyway, but he didn't deserve such a long sentence, not for that. I must look it up when we get back.”

  “Why would you bother?” asked Amanda. “What good will that do?”

  “Call it curiosity, just out of interest. Bedtime reading.”

  “Well, if the guy did get life, I wouldn't go telling everybody else, especially Dupin. It’s not going to make him or the team feel any better. The poor guy looked worried sick when I delivered the news to him yesterday, as you would, too.”

  “I’ll keep it to myself. Like I said, idle curiosity and bedtime reading.” He turned into the car park of the station pulled into an empty space beside a gleaming BMW. If the other cars parked in the yard were anything to go by, his colleagues were earning a good deal more salary than he was, he thought ruefully. Maybe he should have worked harder on that promotion when he’d still got the energy.