by Tim Ellis
He stood up and left the room.
‘Sorry,’ the woman said.
He smiled at the girl. ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said, but then realised it probably wasn’t appropriate. ‘Can you tell me what happened this morning?’
The girl began sobbing and buried her face in her mother’s dressing gown.
Mrs Nicholson shrugged and comforted her daughter. ‘Sorry. Helen doesn’t know anything. She came downstairs early to open her presents. That’s what children do, isn’t it? They get up in the middle of the night to find out if Father Christmas has brought their presents.’ She covered her daughter’s ears. ‘What sick bastard would give a child a severed foot for Christmas.’
‘Do you know if anyone in the house drank the sherry and ate the mince pie?’
‘Terry was already snoring in bed when I put them out. I didn’t, and Helen never would.’
‘What about this morning?’
‘No.’
‘Have you any idea who might have been responsible?’
She shook her head. ‘None at all.’ She put her hands over Helen’s ears again. ‘I mean, somebody must have cut up another human being. Who would do that? I don’t know anyone who would do that.’
‘What about your . . . ?’
‘Partner – Terry Noble? We’ve been together for just over eighteen months now. No, I don’t think he knows people like that. You’d have to ask him. He has a bit of a history with you lot.’
‘Whoever it was came in through the back door. The door wasn’t forced, which means the person had a key . . .’
‘Or the lock was picked?’
‘We’ll check it out, of course, but there aren’t many people who can pick locks.’
‘So you think it must be someone we know?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t think anything at the moment. Have you or your partner lost any keys recently?’
‘I haven’t, and Terry hasn’t mentioned anything either.’
‘Okay, I’m not going to press you on that now, but what I’d like is for you to sit down a little later with . . . ?’ He looked at the Victim Support Officer.
‘Constable Vicki Robinson, Sir.’
‘. . . With Constable Robinson and think about how someone could have obtained a key to your back door. I’m thinking a change of door, replacement or new keys cut, visitors who could have had access to your keys, someone you’ve given a copy to, who you work with and the possibility that someone could have made a copy – not just you but Terry as well. Can you do that for me?’
‘Yes, of course?’ Tears snaked down her face. ‘Why would someone leave those . . . things here?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s what he came here to do. Have you noticed if anything was taken?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘At Christmas that’s what criminals do, they break in and steal your presents – they don’t leave gory presents for you. If he’d broken in I might have said that you were just unlucky – a random house he’d picked. The trouble is – he had a key to get in the house. Not only that, he’d put your names on the presents. Whether you like to admit it or not – it’s someone you know.’ He stood up. ‘Have you got somewhere you can stay?’
‘You mean we have to move out of our house?’
‘I’m sorry – yes.’
‘It’s Christmas Day for fuck’s sake.’ She glanced at her daughter. ‘Sorry, Sweetie.’
‘Unfortunately, your house is now a crime scene.’
‘’I suppose we could go to my parents’ house, but I don’t know where Terry’s going to go – they don’t like him,’ she explained.
Passing her one of his business cards he said, ‘If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please give me a call.’ He also gave Constable Robinson a card, so that she could contact him later with the information relating to the back door key.
***
0527 hours
They found Terry Noble smoking and shivering outside the front door beyond the confines of the tent. Over his blue and white striped pyjamas he was hunched into a military-style parka with the fur-lined hood pulled up, and on his feet were a pair of tattered old slippers.
The day was trying to jostle its way past the night, but all it could offer was a weak gunmetal sky and a smattering of falling snow.
Yippee!
It was Christmas Day.
House lights snapped on.
If you listened carefully you could hear the sound of coffee oozing through filters, wrapping paper ripping and tearing, children’s squeals of joy, and the early morning news warning of strange events unravelling in Greater Manchester.
‘Do I have to ring the station and ask them to run your name through the database, Terry?’
‘You lot never let a guy forget his past, do you? I should write to my MP. It’s harassment.’
‘Well?’
‘Burglary. I did two years in Strangeways.’
‘When did you get out?’
‘Two years ago.’
He cocked his head. ‘And she knows?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what can you tell me about this?’
‘Nothing . . . nothing at all.’
‘It’s not someone you’ve upset?’
‘Believe me – I’m straight. Have been since . . .’
‘The guilty always say that.’
‘It’s true. Honestly, Mr Dark. Since I met Marge . . . Well, it’s the real thing.’
‘Why do you look so nervous?’
‘You lot just want to fit someone up for this so that you can get back to your own families. I heard some horror stories in the nick.’
‘If I find out this is anything to do with you . . . you’ll be one of those horror stories, Terry.’
‘I promise . . .’
His mobile vibrated and he moved towards the gate.
‘Dark?’
‘Yes. Hello, Sir,’ a female voice said. ‘This is Constable Charlene Kelly from dispatch.’
‘And?’
‘Merry Christmas, Sir.’
‘Are you ringing me for a bet?’
‘Oh sorry! No, Sir. There’s been two more reports of body parts being left under Christmas trees.’
‘In people’s houses?’
‘Yes. Do you want the addresses?’
‘It’s your first shift on dispatch, isn’t it, Kelly?’
‘Second, Sir. Can you tell?’
‘Stick to the facts, Constable. Give my assistant the two addresses. I’ll pass the phone over to her now.’ He thrust his phone at Lake. ‘Make yourself useful, write down the two addresses.’
Lake passed his phone back. ‘Got them, Sir.’
As he slipped the phone back into the pocket of his coat he realised that all they had up to now was a foot, a forearm and an ear – there were still a lot more Christmas presents to open.
He stripped off the paper suit and threw it in the waste-bin provided together with the mask, gloves and boots.
Lake did the same. He noticed that she was reasonably pretty, had an oval face, dark brown hair, a bun at the back of her head and small gold earrings.
Polly Tyree appeared. ‘You’ve been informed?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve had to cancel Christmas.’
‘Really!’
***
0553 hours
‘Should I follow you in my car, Sir?’ Lake asked.
With the hood and mask removed he saw her clearly for the first time. If it hadn’t been for the splatter of dark freckles on her face and neck, the washed-out light grey eyes and the rats-tail hair, he thought she might have passed as pretty, but she was also bordering on the ugly as well.
‘What would be the point in that – you have the addresses?’
‘I could . . .’
‘. . . Leave your car here.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘It depends whether you want to come with me or not.’
He aimed himself a
t the bottleneck of reporters.
Lake followed him.
A young woman wearing a red duffel coat and tinsel stuck a microphone in his face and walked backwards in front of him. ‘Tamsin Oakley from the Cheadle Camera. Is now a good time to talk, Inspector?’
‘No time is a good time to talk to the press, Miss Oakley.’
‘Come on, Inspector,’ a man called. ‘Give us something.’
He stopped.
Oakley slipped, fell backwards and sat in the slush. Her face glowed as red as her coat as two male reporters hoisted her up by the arms.
He waited until all he could hear was the press helicopter circling overhead.
‘Someone has left body parts disguised as Christmas presents in that house.’
‘Jorden Byrne from the Stockport Sentinel. What do you mean by “body parts”? Are they body parts from a corpse, or has someone been murdered and chopped up?’
‘Yet to be determined by the pathologist.’
‘When?’
‘Late this afternoon.’
‘Gail Richards from the Gatley Gazette. Do you have any suspects yet?’
‘No.’
He shouldered his way through. When he reached his car he turned and said, ‘Meet me outside Wythenshawe Hospital at three-thirty this afternoon and we’ll see what we have.’
Once he’d climbed into the driver’s seat he said to Lake, ‘Addresses?’ and held out his hand.
Lake shut the passenger door, took out her notebook and opened it up at the page she’d written the addresses in before handing it to him.
After keying the two addresses into his satnav and passing Lake’s notebook back, he headed towards 20 Vernon Close in Poynton. With four children, Martha and Eric Glover nearly had a whole dismembered body.
‘I’m an assistant, am I?’ Lake said without looking at him.
He ignored her.
‘DCS Henn said I’d be your partner.’
‘I don’t do partners.’
‘I know about DS Cavendish.’
Everyone in the force knew about Carrie Cavendish.
‘You weren’t to blame.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I read the report – that’s what Professional Standards concluded.’
‘That report was meant to be confidential, and what do they know anyway?’
‘I’m willing to take the risk.’
‘Well, I’m not.’
They were silent for a while and then Lake said, ‘I’ll be a good partner.’
‘Look Lake, I’m sure you’re a very nice person, but I don’t need or want another partner. I work alone. I like working alone. Working alone suits me just fine. I perform better when I’m on my own, when there’s no one cluttering up my thoughts with inane chatter, when . . .’
‘I’ve been in the force for seven years serving at Letchworth Police Station in Hertfordshire, and I passed my investigator’s examinations a couple of months ago. They asked me if I wanted to work with Josiah Dark. Of course, I’d heard of you – who hasn’t? I nearly said no straight away . . .’
‘You should have done.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’
‘And here you are.’
‘They gave me a thick file about you, and the report on Cavendish . . .’
‘So you think you know everything about me now?
‘No . . .’
‘This is exactly why I like working alone. Instead of thinking about the case, you’re distracting me with crap that just doesn’t matter. I don’t care about DCS Henn, I don’t care about you, and my life is none of your damned business.’
‘My father is the Chief Constable of . . .’
‘Ah! Now we’re getting to the real reason you’re here. You’re being groomed for better things because you’re daddy’s little girl . . .’
‘You don’t know anything about me . . .’
‘I know your father’s an arse licker, and so is his little girl. It’s not about what you’ve done or what you know, it’s about who you know. I hate arse lickers.’
‘I’m not . . .’
‘And now you think you can climb on my back to get to where you’re going. Well, I have news for you, Lake . . .’
‘I can see why people don’t want to work with you.’
‘You want to.’
They travelled the rest of the way in silence.
***
0646 hours
Martha and Eric Glover’s house was a four-bedroom semi in a cul-de-sac.
He had to park on another road and walk round to the house.
Lake had to run to keep up with him.
‘You could slow down.’
But he didn’t.
If he opened the door a crack, she’d slither through and his principles would be in tatters. He didn’t want a partner. He didn’t want an arse-licker for a partner, and he especially didn’t want another female as a partner. Carrie Cavendish had died because of him. It didn’t matter what Professional Standards concluded. Everyone knew the truth – especially him. All he wanted now was to solve murders, and for people to leave him the hell alone to do that.
‘You think that if you treat me like shit I’ll give up,’ she shouted after him. ‘That I’ll go running back to DCS Henn with my tail between my legs and ask to be re-assigned. Well Sir, I want you to know that I’ll never give up. I’m going to be your worst nightmare.’
‘You’re already that, Lake,’ he threw over his shoulder.
The press were three-deep outside the house.
He’d stopped trying to figure out a long time ago how the press could get to a crime scene before he did. It was one of those strange phenomena, which he imagined had a complicated explanation involving a mathematical formula and the folding of time and space.
‘Inspector Dark,’ Tamsin Oakley from the Cheadle Camera said. ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this.’
‘I agree. Is your arse dry yet?’
‘Do you care?’
‘No.’ He barged past her through the layers of journalists and ducked under the crime scene tape.
‘Are you DI Dark’s new partner?’ he heard Oakley ask Lake.
‘Yes. DC Annie Lake.’
‘What can you tell us . . . ?’
‘Nothing. I’m not authorised to talk to the press.’
‘Don’t think that makes it true because you’ve told a reporter we’re partners,’ he said to her as they were putting on the paper suits outside the front door of 20 Vernon Close. ‘They print a right load of crap in the newspapers these days.’
He finished putting on his suit first and went inside.
‘Who’s in charge?’ he hollered.
‘In here, Sir,’ a female hollered back.
He walked through into an open-plan living/dining room. The body parts and accompanying wrapping paper were bagged-up and laid out in a line on the floor in front of the gas fireplace. The wrapping paper was the same design as that used in the Nicholson house.
‘Lisa Wong, Sir,’ the white-suited figure said.
He’d worked with Wong before – she was adequate. ‘What have you got, Wong?’
She indicated the three evidence bags on the left. ‘The torso, left hand and thigh of a female in her late forties.’ She pointed to the bags on the right. ‘And a left foot, a left upper arm and an eyeball belonging to a man in his mid-fifties.’
‘Hi,’ Lake said. ‘DC Annie Lake, the Inspector’s new partner. How do you know it’s a male eyeball?’
‘Males tend to have one of the darker eye colours due to higher levels of melanin, but that will obviously have to be confirmed by the pathologist – welcome to the team.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Now that we’ve finished the eyeball lesson,’ Dark said. ‘Can we continue?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Are there any distinguishing marks?’
Wong knelt down and turned over the male upper arm. ‘An old tattoo, which as you can see is Tonatiuh the Aztec
sun god.’
He squatted to examine the tattoo more closely. It was a caricature of a face with its tongue sticking out. Surrounding it was a double circle, and beyond that were more intricate designs of fantastical creatures gripping the outer edge of the circle. ‘Very detailed,’ he said. ‘It must have taken a while and cost a fair bit.’
She pointed to two small marks on the outer edge of the tattoo that had been camouflaged with the overall design. ‘MvQ – the artist’s initials.’
‘Good work, Wong. I’ll need . . .’
‘. . . A picture?’
‘Yes.’
She handed him two Polaroid photographs – one of the tattoo and the other of the artist’s signature.
‘Excellent – a lead at last.’ He passed the Polaroids to Lake. ‘Look after them.’
She slipped them into her jacket pocket.
‘It’s an old tattoo,’ Wong said. ‘And there’s no guarantee it was even done in this country.’
‘I won’t get too excited then.’
She passed him a slip of paper with: Popeye’s Tat2 – 26338798 written on it. ‘Mention my name. If Popeye can help you, he will.’
‘I didn’t know you had tattoos, Wong?’
‘You still don’t.’
‘Another case to solve. So, are the family names on the gift tags?’
‘Yes.’
‘Access?’
‘No forced entry. It looks like whoever it was had a key to the front door.’
‘Family?’
She pointed to a closed patio door. ‘In the conservatory.’
The Glovers were still in their night clothes. Two of the children – the eldest girl and the youngest boy – were playing Jenga on the floor, and the wood block tower was precariously balanced. The other two boys were sitting on two lime green bean bag seats and taking turns at playing a game on a tablet, while Martha and Eric Glover were sitting on one of the two rattan sofas staring out of the window at the falling snow.
Dark sat down opposite them.
Lake perched on the edge of the sofa next to him like an unwanted parasite.
‘Detective Inspector Josiah Dark from the Serious Crimes Division,’ he said, and passed Mr Glover his card.
