by Giles Ekins
Eight
DCI Grace Swan was not pleased.
Not pleased at all.
‘Where? Where? she muttered to herself, as she drove around the controlled car park at Concordia Court, the HQ for West Garside Police, before finally sighting the covered space designated for her. She drove her car, a red Alpha Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio into the space, parked and made her way to the front entrance and into the building
She stopped at the front desk and after she had identified herself as DCI Swan, the desk officer picked up a telephone and made a call. ‘DS Horton will be down soon as, ma’am,’ he said as he replaced the receiver.
After a minute or so, DS Terry Horton exited the lift, walked across to Swan and held out his hand. ‘DS Horton, ma’am welcome.
‘Thank you’
Together they walked back to the lift, he ushered her inside and pressed the button for the first floor and they exited out into the CID department. There were perhaps thirty consoles, with low level dividers between them. There was a computer and screen on every desk, about half of which were currently occupied, the detectives looking up and nodding to her as Swan and Horton made their way through the room.
Horton may have given her the names of the detectives they passed but none stayed in her mind as she looked around. To one side were what she assumed to be meeting rooms, whilst at the far end she could see smaller rooms which she took to be offices for senior officers, including, she assumed, herself.
‘Here we are, ma’am, this is yours, the only DCI we’ve got at the moment, what with the death of George Chatham and Trevor Luithen being on sick leave.’
‘Thank you, I’ll make myself at home and then maybe ask you to make more formal introductions.
‘Very good ma’am, I’m here when you need me’
She paused at the entrance to her office. A piece of paper with her typed name was sellotaped to the glass of the door. ‘That can stay as it is,’ she thought, her appointment was supposedly temporary, and she fully intended to keep it that way.
She hung her coat on the stand and walked around the room, running her fingers across the top of a bookcase to check for dust before sitting down behind her desk. Grace was 37, tall and slender with glossy black hair which today she wore in a tight roll at the back of her head. She had large, surprisingly blue eyes, the high cheeks bones of a model, long legs, small bust and a stomach that was not as flat as she would like, however hard she tried to get it down.
She was wearing a dark grey Hobbs trouser suit, with a white blouse buttoned up to the throat and black patent shoes with a kitten heel. During the day, she wore little make-up apart from lip gloss and a touch of eye shadow and a dab of Jo Malone perfume. She had small diamond stud earrings, there were no rings on the fingers on either hand and she wore a plain Olivia Burton watch and carried a soft black leather Furla handbag. Understated but professional, that was the way she saw it.
As she looked around her new offices and surroundings, Grace was still feeling aggrieved.
Three days ago, she had been called in to see Martin Vickers, the Assistant Chief Constable for Specialised Crime Services and told she had been ‘temporarily’ assigned to the West Garside CID as a replacement for George Chatham, who unfortunately had been killed in a car crash. Another DCI, Trevor Luithen was on sick leave receiving treatment for an unspecified condition, but even so, he said, her detachment ‘will only for a short time, Grace, a month or so until we can find a permanent replacement,’ giving her a smile so artificial his face might well have been moulded polystyrene.
‘Yeah, yeah, she thought,’ and we all know what temporary assignments out in the sticks mean, exile, out of sight, out of mind. Gee, thanks, Mr Vickers! But what could she do, she could not refuse the order, could only say ‘sorry to hear about DCI Chatham, sir, yes sir, thank you, sir’
So, she had emptied her desk at South Yorkshire Police HQ in Sheffield, handed over her current case-load to DI Francis, who gloated like a Cheshire Cat and had driven over to West Garside from her home in Dore to the south west of the city. And now here she was, banished in all but name. It was not a demotion, but it might well have been, she had simply been pushed sideways into a back-water
She knew that she did not belong in the ACC’s coterie of favoured officers, Vickers and Grace had a past which precluded that, but even so! This was bloody unfair with zero chance of recognition or promotion and Grace knew enough about Martin Vickers to know her chance of a recall to HQ were virtually non-existent.
Bugger!
Still feeling disgruntled she switched on her the computer, hunted around the desk and in the drawer for the piece of paper that she was sure that DCI Chatham would have written down his password. Nothing Then she had a flash of inspiration, turned the mouse-pad upside down and there it was, taped to the underside, SaabFoxie1922Mondaymorning.
There was a pile of case files on the desk, cases that George Chatham had been working on but ignoring these she had randomly called up a case online. An Edward Swainson, a 59-year-old man had repeatedly exposed himself to his next-door neighbour, 46-year-old Harriet Little, who had now reported it. to the police.
Another case involving two men getting into a punch up inside the ‘Fox and Duck’ on a Saturday night, no major injuries and both men given cautions.
With a sigh of resignation, she began to work her way through the current case files; a robbery at a corner shop, the Pakistani owner, Mr Rashid Khan, was racially abused and threatened with a knife. An 18 year old student, Jessica Maltby, going home from a night out with her friends had been dragged into Westbourne Park and assaulted. Margaret Carson, a 76 year old widow had been mugged and her handbag snatched and a juvenile offender, Darren Webber, aged 17, with multiple ASBO’s and a rap sheet as long as his arm was suspected of a series of thefts from gardens or opened garages.
‘If this is what constitutes big time crime in West Garside, I’ll hardly be able to contain myself for the excitement, she groaned, deciding that the assault case was priority and began to work through the file, referring to map of the town she had pulled up on her screen.
Nine
Two days later.
The ‘Garside Gazette’ ran the story with a full banner headline.
BEYOND THE GRAVE ACCUSED NAMED.
Prominent local citizen named as child abuser.
The ‘Gazette’ can exclusively reveal that the father allegedly accused of abuse by his daughter from beyond the grave is Donald John Jarrett. The daughter, Julia Jarrett, accused her father at a spiritualism meeting, as previously reported by the ‘Gazette.’ Julia Jarrett tragically died from a heroin overdose and it might be assumed that her addictions stemmed from the alleged trauma of her abuse as a child.
Jarrett, a prominent Garside citizen, is the managing partner of Donald J Jarrett and Partners…
Donald Jarrett seethed with fury as he tossed the ‘Gazette’ aside. convinced that the article must be libellous, how could he be named as a child abuser without a single shred of evidence, convicted in the public mind by a scurrilous report in the local rag.
He picked up his ‘Daily Mail’ but nothing he read could abated his anger.
Ahmed Al Thawadi, an Islamic terrorist, serving a life sentence after hacking a policeman to death with a machete, was suing the prison service for a ‘breach of his human rights.’ He claimed that he was subject to ‘humiliating conditions’ because he was housed in a jail that also contained ‘kuffers’ ‘unbelievers’ and was demanding to be placed in a Muslims only jail.
The legal process would cost the tax-payer at least £250,000 in court and legal fees, and of course, Al Thawadi was relying on Legal Aid to pursue his vexatious law-suits, fuelled by greedy lawyers willing to pursue any claim however ludicrous or frivolous.
‘Bloody disgraceful,’ Donald said to himself, as he read that the killer had been on a watch list since returning from Syria and suspected of belonging to ISIS. ‘So why do we allow these people back in the c
ountry?’
He heard a noise behind him and looked up, certain that he was alone in the house.
‘David? Is that you?’
The blow to his head knocked him forwards over the newspaper, he was vaguely aware of pain and blood as another blow smashed into him. He felt nothing after the third blow.
Ten
David Jarrett drove his mother’s blue Volvo V40 through the gates and parked it next to Donald’s V90. Janet had ‘lent’ the car a couple of times to David, an arrangement that he now seemed to think was permanent and now took the car whenever he felt like it without asking, a source of contention between them. Janet thought he took the car just to annoy her and Donald had told him that he should ask permission before taking it, but he ignored them both.
When she had first given him use of the car, she had also given him the spare key, an act she now regretted and no amount of demanding its return could entice him to give it back.
‘I need the wheels,’ he would say, when pressed about the issue.
‘So do I,’ retorted Janet.
‘Well, you know what to do, don’t you? Get another one, get Donald to buy you another car if you need one that bad, but I need the wheels. End of.’
He got out of the car and walked into the house. From the front door, he walked down the hallway towards the kitchen and pushed open the door.
Donald Jarrett sat on one of the wooden kitchen chairs, slumped across the kitchen table. The back of his head is a mass of clotted blood and hair and darkening blood was thickly spread across the table. David quickly ran back down the hall, picked up the telephone on the hall console table and dialled 999.
‘999, what’s your emergency?’, responded the operator in the emergency services call centre.
‘Police! My father, father, he’s been attacked. He’s dead. I think he’s dead.’
‘Where are you caller, can you give me your address?’
‘Hurry, please.’
‘Caller, I need you to confirm your address. Are you calling from the scene of the incident?’
‘Yes, it’s my parent’s home, I live here.’
‘Caller, I have an address on my system of number 27, Blackmires Road, Fallswood, West Garside. Is that where you are calling from?’
‘Yes, hurry. Please hurry.’
‘A response team is on its way to you now. Can you tell me your name caller? Your name?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. It’s David. David Jarrett.’
‘Thank you, David, You say the injured person is your father. Can you please give me his name?’
‘Yes, it’s Donald, Donald John Jarrett.’
‘Thank you, David, the response teams should be with you very shortly. Can you tell me David, is there anybody else in the house with you?’
No. No, I’m here on my own. Oh no, shit, not unless the killer is still here.’
‘David, listen carefully to me. I want you to quickly walk out of the house and wait for the response team. Try not to touch anything, all right.’
‘Yes, and my mother, she’s missing, I think she must have locked herself in the garage and hanged herself.’
‘David, David, are you there,’ but the line had gone dead.
Eleven
The first responders to the scene were Pc’s Mary Granger and Felipe Arnesto-Fernadez. Mary went to speak to David, who was sitting on the low brick garden wall with his head in his hands whilst Felipe went inside the house. He came out almost immediately and reported the incident as an apparent homicide. A Senior Investigating Officer, an SIO, would now take over the investigation.
Twelve
‘DCI Swan’ she answered, picking up the telephone.
‘Grace, are you trained to PIP level III?’ Superintendent Andy Claybourne, the Chief Officer at West Garside asked.
‘Yes sir,’ she had attained level III of the Professional Investigation Programme at the College of Policing, a necessary step towards promotion and advancement.
‘Good, a potential homicide has been called in, I’d rather Trevor Luithen took it as SIO, but he’s indisposed you so will have to take it.’ Great, thanks for the vote of confidence, she thought.
‘OK, sir, show me responding.’ Grace said, taking down details on a notepad. She plucked her coat from the stand and hurried out into the CID room, shouting across to Terry Horton. ‘DS Horton? Grab your coat and come with me. Suspected assault believed fatal.’
He picked his coat and scurried after her. ‘Right behind you ma’am’ he said as they made their way out to her car. Terry gave the Alfa a quick glance of approval before sliding into the passenger seat and buckled up as Grace punched a post code into the sat-nav.
‘Where are we off to, ma’am?’
‘Blackmires Road, do you know it?’
‘It’s up Blackfalls somewhere, ma’am. Not my usual habitat, a bit too rich for my blood, if you know what I mean. What do we know about the shout, anyway?’
‘A David Jarrett, called it in. Seems he returned home and found his father dead in the kitchen, apparently beaten about the head. He also states that his mother has hanged herself in the garage.’
‘Murder/suicide?’
‘Could be but we’ll keep…’
At the next roundabout, take the third exit, the sat-nav interrupted her.
‘Could be,’ Grace continued, ‘but we’ll keep an open mind about it.’
‘Yes ma’am, goes without saying.’
‘It still needs to be said.
‘Yes ma’am’
‘Listen, it’s Grace, all right? Outside and inside the nick unless there’s top brass…’
Take the next right turn.
‘Bossy cow, isn’t she? As I was saying, unless there’s top brass about, it’s Grace. I can’t stand too much formality. And you’re Terence, right?’
‘Yes ma’am, Terry. Sorry, er …Grace, wasn’t quite sure how you wanted it, being new and all. Just transferred I mean. I mean some senior officers want the full bells and whistles, yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. You just don’t know.’
‘That’s OK, I’m still finding my way around and I need to get to know you and the others pretty-quick smart and too much yes ma’am no ma’am just gets in the way’
They sped through the town centre and up the hills towards Fallswood, following the sat-nav directions. As they turn into Blackmires Road they can see two police cars, blue lights flashing, an ambulance and a clutch of onlookers. Passing cars slowed down to gawk, impeding traffic.
You have arrived at your destination.
‘Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.’ Terry said.
‘Christ, it’s sodding mayhem.’
They exit the car and show their warrant cards to one of the uniforms.
‘Ma’am,’ Dr Phil, Dr Bagster, the police surgeon is already on the scene.’
‘Thank you, constable. Get the road blocked off and make sure that none of the curious cattle get in the way’, Grace said gesturing to the thronging on-lookers.’
‘Yes, ma’am, just about to do that,’ he said, holding up the roll of blue and white crime scene tape.
‘Good. Thank you.’
Grace and Terry returned to the Alfa to don white forensic suits, hair nets and latex gloves. Grace then slipped off her shoes and pulled on white rubber boots. They then made their way into the house, giving their names to a uniform who noted all who entered or exited the building.
They stopped briefly in the hallway to acquaint themselves of the layout. To the right was a carpeted dog-leg staircase leading to the upper floors, there was a cloakroom with clothes hooks from which dangled a collection of outdoor coats and jackets, beyond which was a toilet, with wc and wash-basin.
To the left was a large sitting room which they did not enter, then a dining room that exited into a large glazed conservatory. At the far end of the hallway was the kitchen and Grace and Terry surveyed the scene through the open door.
As befitted the elegant house, the kitch
en was large, the walls well-appointed with Shaker style cream units, white marble worktop, a cream Aga and a tall white Smeg fridge/freezer. A television was mounted in one corner. A double white Belfast sink sat below a window that looked out into the garden. One door led to the outside, another to a pantry and a third to a utility room.
The kitchen table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by four wooden chairs.
The murder victim, presumably Donald Jarrett, was seated on the nearest chair, with his back facing Grace and Terry as they examined the scene through the doorway.
He was slumped across the table, the back of his head a mess of blood, clotted hair and shards of white skull. Blood had pooled about his head and dripped to the floor in a bloody puddle. His right arm was stretched across the table as though reaching for something, whilst his left arm hung by his side. There was a bloody hammer to the left side of his head which was lying on top of a newspaper that he apparently had been reading when attacked.
A police surgeon, forensically suited. was examining the body intently, oblivious to Grace and Terry as he pulled up an eye-lid to check for rigor mortis.
They backed out of the doorway, Grace took out her mobile and called the Coroner’s office requesting the presence of a Home Office Pathologist.
‘OK, done. Terry, get onto some of the team’ Grace ordered, ‘whomever you think best suited. Get them talking to the immediate neighbours. See if they saw or heard anything, arguments, visitors they didn’t recognise, that sort of stuff . We need to build up a picture of what the family is like. We know there’s a son and his mother. Any other siblings? Uniform will do a wider door to door later once the House to House Team Leader is appointed, but let’s get initial enquiries under way.’
