by Adam Croft
Jack cocked his head slightly. ‘Wrong? How do you mean?’
‘You’ve just been really weird lately. Asking weird stuff.’
‘It’s just dad stuff. At least I thought it was. I’m still learning, don’t forget.’
Emily let out a small laugh. ‘I know you are. And it’s hilarious sometimes.’
12
Elsie Fogg put the bracelet back in the cabinet and let out a small sigh. It had been another quiet day. They were all quiet, these days.
As the proprietor of a mid-market jewellery shop, she felt as if she’d been squeezed from all angles for years. The fashion for cheap costume jewellery had pinched hard, as had the rise of online shopping. And with two major mid-market jewellery chains already in the centre of Mildenheath, she’d relied on locals preferring to buy from her independent shop, but it was almost impossible to compete.
The truth was she should have given up long ago. She’d wanted to. In any other situation she probably would have done, but this shop had been her mother’s before her, and she felt a sense of duty to stick it out to the last. The captain must go down with his ship. In any case, she had no choice as there was no lifeboat. This shop was all she’d ever known.
Her son, Chris, had told her for years she should just close the shop and retire. It’d mean being able to spend more time with him and her grandson, Alfie. But the longer she went on, the harder it was to get out. She already had nothing. She worked in the shop six days a week — and had even tried opening on Sundays to pick up the trade the chains were losing — just to try and claw back some money. But every month she sunk deeper into the red, like a gambler chasing a heavy loss.
Anyway, some things were more important than money.
She straightened her back, feeling the vertebrae crack and pop as she did so, then pulled a vape from the pocket of her cardigan. She pressed the button to heat it, then took a strong, deep drag. Blueberry and cardamom for the end of a day, always.
The second button she pressed was the one which started the roller shutters moving outside the front of the shop, protecting the windows and stock from the local hoodlums. Her mother hadn’t needed to worry about that in her day. Wouldn’t have even needed to lock the door, probably. Could have just left it open.
Just as she was going for another cheeky drag of blueberry and cardamom, she heard a noise coming from the back of the shop.
It was probably nothing, she told herself. Just the girls from Superdrug putting the cardboard out for collection. She took out her vape and inhaled deeply, almost choking as the office door burst open and she came face-to-face with two balaclava-clad men.
They were shouting at her, but she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. It was just noise. English noise, but noise all the same.
Time seemed to slow down. The noise seemed to go quiet, and all she noticed was one man pointing a shotgun at her while the other went to town on the glass cabinets with a hammer.
The first noise she heard breaking the silence was her own piercing scream. The man with the shotgun grabbed hold of her and clamped his hand over her mouth, leaving her struggling for breath.
It was then that she noticed another two men had entered the shop, and were now spraying a black tarry substance over the security cameras. Elsie wanted to tell them there was no point. They hadn’t worked for months. The nice man wanted two hundred quid to get them working again, and that was money she didn’t have.
She watched on helplessly as the men emptied the display cabinets, filling two suitcases with as much as they could get their hands on — which was largely made up of broken glass.
An overwhelming sense of anger and betrayal washed over her. She wasn’t scared. She was furious.
This was what her mother had worked her fingers to the bone for. It was what Elsie had dedicated her life to maintaining — the memory of her mother. Fogg’s was a Mildenheath institution, and these scrawny little fuckers weren’t going to be the ones to consign it to history.
The other three men zipped up the suitcases and made to leave, at which point the man who’d had his hand over Elsie’s mouth let go and moved to follow them.
Elsie grabbed hold of his arm, knowing she had to either get a good look at his face or come away with some sort of evidence that could make sure these bastards got caught.
The man shrugged her off, but she was determined. There was no way she was letting go now.
She heard the grunt as he tried to wriggle free, but she didn’t see him throw his elbow out behind him, didn’t see it careering towards her face.
Elsie tasted the blood before she felt anything, other than the ringing in her ears. She stumbled backwards, trying to stay on her feet, desperate to cling onto her assailant. Before she realised what was happening, her feet had disappeared from under her.
The last sound she heard was the crack as her skull bounced off the corner of a display cabinet. Her last thought was that she hoped her mother would have been proud.
13
Much of policing was about spotting patterns. Indeed, entire computer systems had been designed to analyse cases from police forces right across the country and try to identify any patterns which might arise.
More often than not, though, it was police officers themselves who spotted them, and Jack Culverhouse considered this to be one of his strengths.
Last night’s robbery at Fogg’s had resulted in the death of the shop’s proprietor, and was therefore now being treated as a murder investigation. The pressure from above had been to move the case to Milton House, citing the existing workload on the Mildenheath team. Jack, however, was unrepentant.
He despised having cases taken away from him. Like any job, there were times when it was busier than others. This was no different. He knew his team were more than capable of working on both cases. Besides which, he wasn’t entirely convinced they were two separate cases.
Armed robberies were rare in Mildenheath anyway, so that was the first thing that aroused Jack’s suspicions. But there was more.
Preliminary investigations had discovered that the weak point at Fogg’s was the back door. Somehow the robbers had managed to remove the door with relative ease.
Although the CCTV system in the shop wasn’t operating at the time of the robbery, the intruders had tampered with every single camera — even the ones which were well hidden. They were either under the impression that the cameras were working, or they just didn’t want to take any chances.
‘We’ve got officers in the shop as we speak, trying to ascertain what’s been taken and what’s been left,’ Jack said, addressing his team at the morning briefing. ‘They’re a long way from coming to any conclusions, but the old lady’s record keeping was good so they’ve got high hopes. The only thing they can say at the moment is it looks like it was a targeted attack. Debbie, you’ve got more on this, haven’t you?’
‘A little,’ Debbie said. Feedback from the scene is that not all the display cabinets were broken. Only some of them. They weren’t all next to each other, either, so it looks on the face of it as if they knew exactly which ones to go for. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out they were the most valuable items.’
Jack nodded, having assumed much the same himself. ‘Steve, did you and Frank manage to find anything on CCTV? Any BMW drivers by any chance?’
‘Nothing,’ Steve said. ‘CCTV round the back’s crap. There’s a tree in the way. We’d have to look wider. Town centre cameras, maybe some residential if there’s anything about.’
‘Right. Widen out the timeframes, too. The robbers clearly know the area well. Let’s look at the weeks leading up to the robbery. There’ll have been someone staking the place out, I’m sure of it. Keep an extra eye out for dark BMWs coming and going. You and Frank prioritise that. Where is the fat fuck anyway?’
‘Hospital, guv. His missus has done her knee in again.’
‘Jesus Christ. She can’t have many left.’
‘Fell in the kitchen,
apparently. Something to do with complications after her operation.’
Jack vaguely recalled Frank talking about his wife having had a knee replacement, but it hadn’t really been the most scintillating of conversations — not that any which involved Frank ever were.
‘Well let’s hope she’s back doing the jive before too long, else we’re in grave danger of finding ourselves short-staffed. Any word back yet on cause of death for the old woman? Other than having half her head caved in by the side of a jewellery cabinet.’
‘I think we can safely say that’s going to be what comes back,’ Wendy said. ‘They’re pretty sure that’s what happened. Bearing in mind they went in armed and smashed up the cabinets with some sorts of weapons, if they’d really wanted to cause her some harm they would have used those. Bouncing her head off a cupboard’s an odd way to go about it.’
Culverhouse nodded. ‘Agreed. I don’t imagine they meant to kill her. Maybe she put up a fight. Maybe she tripped. Either way, they’ve fucked up big time.’
The team all knew what this meant. Far from being a small series of armed robberies, this was now a fully-fledged murder investigation.
14
Later that day, Jack received a call from the front desk to say a man had turned up and wanted to speak to someone about the petrol station robberies.
There’d been some appeal messages posted on social media and local news websites in the hope of finding witnesses. A few calls had come in and were being looked at, but no-one had yet taken it upon themselves to just turn up at the station.
Jack had said he’d come down and speak to him. If it was going to be useful, it was best that it went straight to him. If it was a time waster, Jack would be the best person to get him to fuck off pretty quickly.
He made his way down to the front desk and introduced himself to the only person in the waiting area.
‘Hi. Dwayne,’ the man said, although Culverhouse would barely have called him a man. He’d put him somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two, built like a broken beanpole with long, greasy hair that stuck to his face where it’d slipped from its ponytail.
‘Dwayne…?’
‘Yeah. Dwayne.’
Culverhouse looked at him for a moment. ‘Your surname.’
‘Oh. No, that’s my first name.’
‘Sorry, did you come here on a fucking windup or something?’
Dwayne’s eyes narrowed in confusion. ‘No. I walked.’
Culverhouse let out a long sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Dwayne, I’m going to make this remarkably simple, even for you. What is your surname?’
‘Oh. Etherington-Smythe.’
‘Of course. What else? Follow me.’
The pair went through to a small, informal interview room where their conversation could be recorded without Jack having to take down copious notes and write up a formal statement for Dwayne to sign. In any case, he was pretty sure the lad would have enough trouble spelling his first name, never mind his surname.
He sat Dwayne down, ran him through the process and made sure he was relaxed, although he suspected Dwayne had never been anything other than relaxed in his life.
‘So, can I have your full name please, Dwayne. Including any middle names.’
‘Yeah, it’s Dwayne Archibald Randolph Brian Gary Etherington-Smythe.’
‘Archibald Randolph Brian Gary?’ Culverhouse asked, making sure he’d got them all.
‘Yeah. Me Dad was posher than me mum.’
Culverhouse raised his eyebrows and nodded. ‘Quite the multicultural citizen, Dwayne. I’m told you wanted to speak to someone about some evidence you have regarding the recent armed robberies at petrol stations in and around Mildenheath?’
‘Yeah.’
Culverhouse waited a few moments, then raised his eyebrows again. ‘Go on.’
‘Well I saw something in the news saying you wanted information on the petrol stations what got done over.’
‘Yes,’ Culverhouse said, blinking furiously and trying to hold onto his temper.
‘So I’ve come here to speak to you about it.’
Culverhouse took a deep breath. ‘What’s your connection with the petrol stations?’
‘Oh, I used to work at one of them.’
‘Which one?’
‘Chancel Street.’
‘Alright. And how long ago was this?’
Dwayne sat back in his chair forcefully enough that he bounced a little, then crossed his arms. ‘Blimey. Must be fifteen years ago now.’
Culverhouse eyed the man carefully. ‘How old are you?’
‘Me? Thirty-nine.’
‘You’re thirty-nine?’
‘Yeah. Forty next month.’
At that moment, Culverhouse couldn’t have been more surprised if Dwayne Etherington-Smythe had told him he was the secret lovechild of Demis Roussos and Barry Gibb.
‘You must tell me about your skincare regime, Dwayne. It’s clearly working wonders for you.’
‘Well, first thing in the morning I put on a—’
‘Is there something about the petrol station that made you want to come and make a statement today?’
Dwayne shrugged. ‘Not really. Just heard you was looking for people who knew it.’
‘Yes. We were kind of hoping for a bit more information, to be honest. Perhaps something that might help us find the robbers.’
‘Ah. Well I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. I only worked there six weeks.’
There was nothing Culverhouse wanted more in that moment than to ram Dwayne’s head through the door.
‘What about security measures? CCTV cameras, procedures put in place in case of a robbery, that sort of thing?’
Dwayne shrugged again. ‘Dunno nothing about that.’
‘Right. So you came all the way down here to tell us that you worked at one of the petrol stations for six weeks fifteen years ago and don’t remember anything about it.’
‘That’s right, yeah.’
Culverhouse forced a smile. ‘Right. We’ll be in touch.’
He felt mentally drained as he left the room and decided instead to head out to buy a strong coffee. The machine in the office was getting worse by the day, and was now at the stage where it was spewing out liquid that tasted like cat piss and didn’t look much different either.
Fortunately for him, a new coffee shop had opened just across the road from the station, which saved him having to walk fifty yards to the next of Mildenheath’s many coffee shops.
He’d only been in there once in the fortnight it had been open, but the young woman behind the counter remembered him immediately. ‘Straight black?’ she said, trying not to let the tremor in her voice show. She could still remember the last time he came in, where he kept on barking ’Black’ over the list of macchiatos, frappes and cappuccinos she was reading out for him.
As far as Culverhouse was concerned, there were only two types of coffee: black or white. And white was for girls.
Once the large black coffee was in his hand, he made his way back across the road and into the station, before heading back to the incident room.
‘Guv,’ Steve said, the second Culverhouse opened the door.
‘What?’ came the barked reply.
‘We started looking at the CCTV coverage, like you said. We already had the footage from Fogg’s as it was seized by officers at the scene, so we thought we’d kick things off there.’
‘Wait. I thought the cameras in the shop weren’t working?’
‘So did we. One of them was working fine, though. It was up high, behind the till counter, facing the door. Perfect location, really.’
‘Not for identifying the bastards who came in through the back.’
‘Well, no. I was going to come onto that. We’ve got no faces or anything from the time of the robbery itself. Two backs of heads — or balaclavas, I should say — but that’s about it. But we used the footage from that camera to pick up anyone who actually came into the shop a
nd spent some time there in the days before the robbery, especially as the robbers seemed to know where all the best gear was. Pretty easy job, as it happens, seeing as no bugger hardly ever goes in there. There’s maybe two or three a day, if that. Footage only goes back a week, but one of the first things we came across was pretty interesting, to say the least. It seems the shop had a visitor.’
‘Are you going to spit it out or what, Steve?’
Steve curled his finger to beckon Culverhouse to follow him, which he did. And there, on Steve’s computer screen, was a crystal clear picture of Damian King.
15
Wendy Knight had never usually been the sort of person who relished the thought of a night in front of the telly, but she couldn’t deny that her thoughts on the matter had changed recently.
The way she thought about many things had changed. She’d become more homely — that was without doubt. The only difficulty was in working out whether her relationship with Xav was the cause or the effect. Was coming home to him making the evenings feel cosier and more intimate, or was she feeling close to him because she’d turned a corner and started to value home life over work?
It was a balance she’d struggled with for a while, and she certainly wasn’t alone on that front. It was a universal truth that a huge percentage of police officers had difficulties in their personal lives which were caused either directly or indirectly by the job.
The unpredictable and often late hours caused logistical nightmares, and there were many officers who went days without seeing their own children. Naturally, that put a great strain on many marriages, too. It was undeniable that the job places a huge amount of psychological pressure on people. Officers would put themselves in grave danger on a daily basis for a public who often didn’t care. They were abused, assaulted and made to inspect the aftermath of horrific deaths, and got very little out of it other than the average UK salary — if they were lucky. Once that was put against the number of hours they actually worked in any given week, they were lucky if they earned the National Minimum Wage.
