The Hero's Fall (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 14)

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Are you in charge?’ she said to Isaac.

  ‘I’m the senior investigating officer, that’s correct, Detective Chief Inspector Cook. And you are?’

  Isaac playing by the book, Wendy knew. Everyone knew who Maddox Timberley was: Page 3 girl, centrefold in most men’s magazines, the object of many a young man’s lust, many an older one who should have known better.

  ‘Maddox Timberley. It’s Angus, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did you know he was going to do this?’

  ‘He told me, said it’d be good for the ratings, good publicity for the both of us. He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m afraid he is,’ Isaac said. ‘This must come as a shock to you.’

  Wendy expected the woman to break down in tears; Isaac didn’t. To him, there was a hardness in her, similar to Tricia Warburton.

  ‘It is. Angus, he never puts a foot wrong, done this before, even climbed Mount Everest. Can you believe that?’

  ‘We’re aware of his history,’ Isaac said. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘It’s on the news. Tricia’s live on the television.’

  Wendy was aware of Maddox and her reputation, only too willing to strip off for a photo if the price was right.

  ‘You don’t like her?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Angus did, thought she was alright, fancied her probably.’

  ‘Did you mind?’

  ‘Not much. I’ve got a flight this evening, the Bahamas, a photo shoot.’

  ‘You’ll need to cancel it,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I can’t. The penalties if I don’t go, my reputation.’

  ‘Miss Timberley, Angus Simmons, your boyfriend, the man you were living with, has been murdered. You’re a person of interest,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Murdered, Angus, no way. Everyone loved him,’ Maddox Timberley said, her composure starting to slip, the realisation of the situation. ‘He was good to me, never hit me, nothing like that.’

  ‘A lady’s man?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Are you inferring he wasn’t?’

  ‘His masculinity has been questioned.’

  ‘These comments that he was bisexual or gay, that’s all they were. The media always portrays me like a tart, makes up stories, screwing whoever, but the majority’s a lie. I grew up in a good Christian family, parents who loved each other, loved their children.’

  ‘Unusual name, Maddox.’

  ‘Freda Sidebottom from Rotherham doesn’t sound so good.’

  ‘That’s your original name?’ Wendy asked.

  Maddox’s suppressed emotions were released as she spoke of her family and where she had come from. Wendy grabbed the woman as she went weak at the knees, the tears starting to flow, the shock of the reality washing over her.

  Isaac cast a glance in Tricia Warburton’s direction, saw that her cameraman had his lens trained on them, the woman talking into her microphone. He may have misjudged Maddox Timberley; he still wasn’t sure about Tricia Warburton.

  Chapter 3

  Angus Simmons’s sexual proclivities were important, but not as much as where the shot had originated.

  ‘No more painful than a severe bee sting,’ the pathologist said at the autopsy, ‘enough to cause an instinctive reaction to put a hand on the area, to flick away.’

  Enough to cause a lapse of concentration and death, Isaac knew.

  Maddox, the deceased’s girlfriend, her manner more like Freda Sidebottom than the persona of Maddox Timberley, sat soulfully in the interview room at Challis Street. It was a charmless room; the walls painted beige, the ceiling white. A camera was mounted high in one corner of the room, a metal cage around it, and there was a small table with four chairs, two to each side. The recording equipment controls and a digital clock were secured to the table, the recorder in an adjacent room.

  Maddox Timberley, not a suspect presently as her alibi was firm. She had no firearms experience, and even if she had, it would have taken a competent marksman, someone with training, to execute the shot.

  ‘It came as a shock,’ Maddox said. She held a cup of coffee in her right hand. To her side, a lawyer, but not needed, not yet, Isaac thought, but then, he had been misled before by a pretty face and an easy manner. He thought back to it: early in his career, a Swedish au pair he was dating at the time who had killed not just one man but several, her behaviour resulting from a troubled childhood and sociopathic tendencies.

  ‘When the cameras were off; when Angus wasn’t performing for the camera, what was he like?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘He was studious, and the feats that he accomplished, the challenges he accepted or took on, were well thought out. He planned meticulously, never took a chance, and he told me that climbing the Shard wasn’t that difficult, only looked so from the ground.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘I trusted him.’

  ‘Loved him?’ Wendy, an incurable romantic, asked, not only for the sugary-sweet sentiment but also to judge the relationship’s strength. She knew that her DCI would focus on the reality, but if Maddox Timberley was to be absolved of any collaboration in the death, her feelings towards Angus Simmons were important.

  ‘I was very fond of him.’

  ‘An honest answer,’ Wendy said, realising that a gushing, overly-emphasised proclamation of undying love would not have been sincere, not from a person whose history of former lovers was well known.

  ‘We had been together for nearly two years, and Angus wasn’t a man to commit, not to me, not to any woman.’

  ‘Why did you stay with him?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Because I could be myself, no need to pretend with Angus, nor he with me.’

  ‘Compatible?’

  ‘A dull, boring couple at home, content to lounge around in our pyjamas, to read a book, to watch a mushy romance on the television.’

  ‘Loving?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘If by that you mean that we were at each other like rabbits, the answer is no. I believe I explained that before.’

  ‘You said he was placid,’ Isaac reminded Maddox.

  ‘He was always buying me flowers, remembering our anniversaries, the little things that happened in our relationship, but a lover he was not.’

  ‘Did that concern you?’

  ‘When every hot-blooded male over the age of fifteen wanted to jump me, no. I’ve already told you that in public, I’m Maddox Timberley, but at home with my parents and then with Angus, I was the gap-toothed skinny rake my parents had raised, the person that Angus liked.’

  ‘The gap’s gone,’ Wendy said.

  ‘I enjoy the limelight, the same as he did. Both of us seduced by fame and fortune, the lifestyle that came with it, and if pouring myself into a skintight dress, too short for decency, is the cost, then so be it. Angus was the same, and climbing buildings when he no longer wanted to was the price he paid.’

  ‘Are you saying he had trepidation?’

  ‘Never with his ability. Climbing buildings was irresponsible, something he did when he was younger and sillier, but not at his age. You see, Angus was socially responsible, more interested in the environment, social discourse, politics eventually.’

  ‘Then why climb?’

  ‘He hadn’t wanted to climb that building. Pointless, he said, but the programme’s ratings were plummeting and Tricia, she was desperate to hang on to her job. Her job was on the line, and he did it as a favour for her.’

  ‘Does she know this?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. You’d have to ask her.’

  ‘Tricia told us there was a plan afoot to get rid of one of the programme’s hosts, to run with just the one. If he had succeeded in bringing the focus onto him, he would have taken the job, not her.’

  ‘Or if the ratings improved, they would have kept the two.’

  ‘And now, the ratings will be through the roof, and there’s no contest as to who is to be the host. A motive?’ Isaac conjectured.

  ‘Angus intended to leave next year anyway, bigger fish to fry.’ />
  ‘Another programme?’

  ‘A few more mountains to climb, a book to write, politics if he could get an endorsement. He only did it for Tricia, no one else.’

  ‘Does Tricia know this?’

  ‘It’s unlikely. Too dumb to figure it out.’

  ‘Then why do it?’

  ‘That’s Angus, loyal to those he respects, those he trusts.’

  ‘Misplaced?’

  ‘No. Angus could see goodness in her. I couldn’t, but then, he was a better judge of character than I am.’

  ‘We judge you to be decent,’ Wendy said. ‘Are we wrong, as dumb as Tricia?’

  ‘Another five or six years, when the surgeons can’t maintain my figure or my face, then Maddox Timberley will fade away. And as I wither, possibly write a racy book on life in the fast lane, men I’ve known, kinks and all.’

  ‘Married to Angus?’

  ‘We had talked about it, but not with him.’

  ‘Why?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘I want children, and with Angus, that wasn’t possible. He didn’t want to be responsible for bringing a child into the world. He felt that the world was in turmoil, and the future was bleak. Not that he was morbid about it, saw himself as a realist. Even if I could have talked him around, it wasn’t my right to do.’

  ***

  At the murder scene, the usual traffic flow had resumed, the only signs the crime scene tape, a couple of uniforms and no parking down the side of the street where Simmons had fallen.

  Gordon Windsor’s report showed where Angus Simmons had lost his grip, the chalk marks with his fingerprints visible, smudged when the bullet had struck. And as one of those who had ascended the building commented afterwards, apart from the spectacle of someone climbing free, it was not as dangerous as it looked.

  Two days had passed since the incident. Two days of conjecture, discussion, meetings with Maddox and Tricia and the production crew, attending the autopsy, ensuring the next of kin were informed: a mother in Scotland, a father in London, neither of whom had been surprised at their son’s death.

  ‘He was always going to die young,’ Angus’s mother said. ‘As a child, climbing a tree or scurrying around. Even in the middle of winter, swimming in the loch, getting a cold, the flu, pneumonia once. We nearly lost him that time.’

  ‘How old was he?’ Wendy asked the woman on Zoom, a video call without the need to travel.

  ‘Pneumonia, ten years of age.’

  Thankfully, Wendy hadn’t had to inform the woman of her son’s death; a police inspector, close to where she lived, had been assigned the job. The mother, an avid reader with no interest in television and only a small radio in her cottage, hadn’t received the news from the media.

  She had taken it well, stoically, according to DI Cameron.

  And now, on the video conference, Angus’s mother sat upright, looked straight into her iPhone. She spoke with a Scottish accent.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Three months ago. He was up here for a week, his usual self.’

  ‘Swimming in the loch?’

  ‘Every day. Angus never failed to challenge himself, always one accident or another. It was always a broken leg, a broken arm, a twisted ankle, and then he fell while climbing once, an outcrop not far from here. He fell twenty feet, landed in a swampy marsh, in hospital for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Schooling?’

  ‘He never had much time for it, not that he was dumb, far from it, but it bored him. He was a difficult child, unlike me, unlike his father.’

  ‘His father?’

  ‘A decent man, more suited to the city than me. We met at university, lived together for a few years, and then when Angus was on the way, we got married, did the right thing by the child, attempted to make a go of a flagging relationship, more for Angus than us. I took Angus, went back to the house I had grown up in as a child, and we lived there. I still do, even after Angus took off.’

  ‘Took off? Were you in agreement?’

  ‘Angus had things to do. I was exceptionally proud of what he achieved, but he was a star that shone too bright. His death, tragic as it is, was not unexpected.’

  ‘He didn’t fall of his own accord,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Angus upsets people.’

  ‘How and why?’

  ‘I don’t mean maliciously, but he created envy and jealously. People were intimidated by his optimism, his willingness to tackle challenges that others deemed impossible. People lost face because of him, and Mike Hampton ended up blaming him for what happened in South America.’

  ‘I’ve heard of the name,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Not that I give it much credence, but Hampton hated Angus because of what had happened.’

  ‘Enough for Hampton to take revenge?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘I suggest you talk to Mike Hampton. I only know Angus’s version, even though he thought he was blameless for what had happened.’

  ‘Were they friends?’

  ‘Angus never had many friends; Mike would have been his only one. A loner even as a child, not with his face in a book or staying in the house, but out on the moors, sometimes disappearing for days on end.’

  ‘You worried?’

  ‘Yes, dreadfully, but that was Angus, and then after a few days, there he would be sitting down at the kitchen table, cleaning a rabbit that he’d caught, expecting me to put it in the oven for him.’

  ‘Which you did.’

  ‘I was resigned to Angus’s fate. I knew that one day he wouldn’t come home, and now, he hasn’t. My anguish and sorrow are behind me; emotions deadened by his lifestyle.’

  ‘Yet, you loved him as only a mother could.’

  ‘He was a remarkable child and an even more remarkable adult, and I hoped that one day he would stop, but I never expected it.’

  ‘Maddox Timberley?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘She came up here with him once. I liked her, and so did Angus, thought that he might be settling down.’

  ‘She has a reputation.’

  ‘So had Angus, but he was a quiet boy, kept to himself, never troubled anyone, other than his poor mother who worried about him. Maddox was fine by me, never judge a book by its cover, and up here, two weeks she spent about six months ago, she fitted right in, took off the high heels and the makeup, helped me around the house, even cleaned a rabbit for him. He liked her a lot.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Not Angus, not as you’d understand. He was solitary, not emotional, no hugs and kisses for his mother.’

  ‘We’re told that his libido wasn’t high.’ Wendy wasn’t sure how to phrase the question to the mother.

  ‘It wasn’t a passionate romance. Angus preferred physical challenges, and Maddox, away from the spotlight, wore a pair of old jeans and a torn shirt. Good family values, that was Maddox, not like what we had shown Angus. His father’s a decent man, bit of a bastard though, can’t keep his hands where they should be.’

  ‘Women?’

  ‘Meet with him, judge for yourself. Maddox never met him; Angus wouldn’t have risked it.’

  ‘He would have made a play?’

  ‘Not his father, but he would have been looking. That’s why I brought Angus up here, away from him. Needn’t have worried though; Angus was never going to be like his father.’

  Chapter 4

  A construction worker found the site where the shot had been taken. Larry Hill was out at the scene within the hour, the twenty-first floor of a new residential high-rise construction.

  ‘Blows up here sometimes,’ the foreman, a tall, well-built man with a Liverpudlian accent, said.

  With no windows, the wind howled through, safety barriers in place to prevent a mishap; sufficient according to the site foreman and its safety officer, not enough for Larry.

  ‘The day of the murder?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Not sure we’d know. We had an industrial disput
e, the place locked up tight.’

  ‘Security?’

  ‘Hardly. They don’t like to waste money, and besides, what’s to steal? Concrete and rebar, not something you can put in a backpack, sell down the pub.’

  ‘If the place is shut up tight, how did the shooter get up here?’

  ‘If it were us, we’d climb the stairs or use the construction elevator.’

  ‘He wasn’t you, and the elevator wouldn’t have been working.’

  ‘Then, if he wasn’t hiding up here from the day before, and that’s unlikely, not many places to hide and it’s perishing cold at night, he came up the stairs.’

  ‘Twenty-one floors?’

  ‘We do it on most days.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Larry said, although the construction elevator attached to the side of the building had been dusty and hesitant, and it had groaned as it rose from the ground below.

  ‘Too many cooked breakfasts from what I can see, Inspector. You’d have a heart attack before the tenth floor.’

  Usually, Larry knew, people were careful in what they said to a police officer, a degree of respect for the law, an unwillingness to tempt providence, leave themselves open to suspicion, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. However, men who had hard physical jobs acquired a toughness and took no such care. These were beer-swilling men, men who swore profusely, shouted at each other, fought on occasion.

  Larry, still not used to the exposed surroundings, leant up against a concrete wall.

  ‘You’re right,’ Larry said. ‘Fond of a beer as well.’

  ‘Spend a day with us. We’ll soon get the flab off you. Stuff that dieting nonsense.’

  ‘I might take you up on that,’ Larry said, knowing that he wouldn’t. He was a sedentary man, the energy slowly draining from his body, yet up high, away from the pollution down below, the cold, biting air entering his lungs, he had to admit to feeling better.

  “He would have had to be fit,’ Larry said.

  ‘It depends how long he was here before he took the shot,’ the foreman said. ‘He would have been exhausted, and even us, we’re puffing if we walk up, okay after a couple of minutes, but you…’