At First Glance

by Paul Gitsham

‘Would you like the good news or the bad news first about the murder weapon, sir?’ asked Jorge Martinez.

  It was mid-afternoon and Warren was doing a circuit of the office. As usual, Grimshaw’s desk next to Martinez was unoccupied; Warren didn’t need to ask where he was, he’d spied him out of the window lurking in the car park, puffing on a cigarette and chatting on his phone.

  ‘Give me the good news,’ instructed Warren.

  ‘Forensics have identified the brand of butcher’s knife used in the attack. The really good news is that it only started being sold in this country at the end of last year.’

  Warren could guess what was coming next.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Annoyingly, it’s a cheap, Chinese import, and it’s stocked by half-a-dozen low-cost retailors in the UK, plus independents.’

  ‘I feared as much. How big a job are we looking at, Jorge? If we can tie ownership of the knife to Wiseman, it strengthens the case against him. If he only bought it a few days before the attack, it may even indicate premeditation.’

  Martinez sighed. ‘It depends on our search parameters. I’ve had a look online and if we assume that Wiseman bought the knife within Middlesbury town limits, there are seven stockists.’

  ‘If he bought it in Middlesbury,’ Warren repeated.

  ‘Yeah. Wiseman doesn’t drive, but Middlesbury’s pretty well connected for public transport.’

  Warren pinched his lip thoughtfully. ‘I can assign you a small team to help you, but we need to keep numbers within reason to start off with. Limit your search to larger towns and cities in the vicinity that he could have reasonably travelled to. If that doesn’t work, I’ll speak to Grayson about expanding the search to a larger area.’

  Martinez opened a new screen.

  ‘I thought you might say that. If we expand the outer limits of our search to encompass Cambridge, Huntingdon, Stevenage and Bedford, there are forty-two retailers, not including independents within that area.’

  ‘Start in Middlesbury and work your way outwards. See if you can get a list of names from customers paying with credit and debit cards first, there’s no point making our lives any more difficult than needs be.’

  ‘I’d have thought that even somebody like Wiseman would have had the sense not to buy a murder weapon with his own debit card.’ Grimshaw had returned. Warren had smelt the man’s aftershave and stale smoke before he heard him.

  ‘If he was buying it as a murder weapon,’ cautioned Warren. ‘We don’t know that he didn’t just grab the nearest knife to hand.’

  Grimshaw grunted his agreement as he opened his desk drawer, and tossed his cigarettes and a Manchester City branded lighter in.

  Manchester City Football Club seemed to be one of the few points of commonality between Grimshaw and Martinez, and was probably the reason the two men had bonded at training college. Beyond that, the similarities were less obvious: Grimshaw was fiercely proud of his working-class roots, growing up in the Longsight area of the city. By contrast, Martinez had technically been brought up outside Manchester, in leafy Cheshire. As Grimshaw regularly pointed out: ‘the poor bastard grew up surrounded by Manchester United players, no wonder he left.’

  ‘The knife typically sells for less than a fiver,’ continued Martinez, ignoring Grimshaw’s arrival. ‘Even if he wasn’t hiding his tracks, the odds are good that he paid cash anyway.’

  ‘In that case, make a note of the time and date of purchases and look into retrieving CCTV footage from the till point – we might get lucky.’

  ‘What timeframe?’

  ‘The date the knife started being imported gives us a start date. Work backwards from the day of the killing.’

  Jorge repressed a sigh, ‘More than six months’ worth.’

  Grimshaw smirked. ‘I’ll convey your apologies to the quiz team, shall I? Don’t worry, you can always join us at the end of the evening to watch us drink our winnings.’

  Martinez raised his middle finger as he turned back to his computer screen.

  Grimshaw picked up his and Martinez’s coffee mugs. ‘Anything for you, boss?’

  Warren declined politely. Between the smoke breaks and the coffee breaks, it was a wonder the man got any work done.

  Almost two days had passed since Kyle Hicks’ body had been found and the main suspect in the case was still unconscious in hospital. However, the case continued to move rapidly, and there was plenty to share at afternoon briefing.

  ‘Forensics confirm that Wiseman could not have acted alone,’ said Warren. ‘That leaves a number of possibilities: first of all, one or other of these two new friends that neighbours reported hanging around with him could have been involved. Details are sketchy, but we may have a potential link to Kyle Hicks’ dealers. One of the accounts matches an unknown suspect mentioned by Hicks’ girlfriend, who goes by the name of “Madman”. He’s described as skinny with a red bandana. Neither the nickname nor the description match anyone in the files. However, the description of his other friend could match that of a known associate of Hicks, Cameron Bird, also known as “Birdman”.’

  ‘Bird sounds like someone we should be speaking to anyway,’ noted Hutchinson.

  ‘I agree. We have an address, so assuming he hasn’t gone to ground, I want him pulled in and his whereabouts confirmed. I’ll liaise with SOC and see if they have anything outstanding they’d like to speak to him about to help us get a search warrant. Shaun, I’d like you to take a picture of Mr Bird over to the neighbours and see if we can confirm that he’s Brad Wiseman’s new best mate. The description was a bit tentative, so take a few headshots of other people with you and make sure they can pick the right one out.’

  ‘What about this Madman character?’ asked Ruskin.

  ‘In a perfect world, we’ll find him curled up on the sofa with Birdman playing Xbox,’ said Warren. ‘Failing that we’ll see if anyone else has a better description, or if Birdman is willing to shop his friend.’

  ‘If they did kill Hicks for his stash, then he might be able to lead us to where it’s being kept,’ suggested Grimshaw. ‘It could take bloody ages to track down which locks those keys fitted.’

  ‘That’s assuming Hicks was killed for his stash,’ cautioned Martinez. ‘We don’t know that’s the reason.’

  ‘Jorge is right, we need to keep an open mind. Which is why I also want to speak to his neighbour Leonard Seacole again. He found the body and called the police. Neighbours confirm that he was following his usual routine that evening, but we’ve yet to find anyone who actually saw him in the park around the time of the murder. Unfortunately, Sinbad the Rottweiler is unable to confirm his alibi.’ Warren was rewarded with a ripple of polite laughter.

  ‘He has some historic convictions for violence and served a short prison sentence for drug possession in the late Eighties, but nothing for nearly thirty years. In fact, he is known in the area as a volunteer youth worker and is said to have strident views on drug dealing.’

  ‘So, we could be looking at a vigilante attack, in conjunction with Wiseman?’ said Martinez.

  ‘It’s a theory, but it’s got plenty of holes that need filling,’ said Warren.

  ‘I have the completed scene report from Bradley Wiseman’s house and garden, and the alleyway leading to the garages,’ said Andy Harrison. ‘I’ll finish typing it up and send it to you before my shift ends, but I thought you’d want a preview.’

  ‘That’s much appreciated, Andy,’ said Warren. It was the end of another long day and he ached to get home. Susan would be getting ready for bed soon and he’d barely seen her since Friday. A cold glass of beer and this week’s Have I Got News For You downloaded from the BBC iPlayer would mean he’d at least spend some time with her.

  ‘Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly a pristine crime scene,’ said Harrison, ‘but it couldn’t be helped. At least the forced entry team wore approved boots, so we could distinguish their footprints from all the others. Which is just as well, since we found an unaccounted-for part
ial print in the kitchen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The floor leading from the back door to the sink had some blood spots, presumably dripped from the knife and the clothes that the killer was wearing. Somebody stepped in it whilst it was still wet, leaving an imprint of the left, front part of a man’s trainer, possibly Adidas, size seven to ten. I’m afraid I can’t be any more precise than that, but it doesn’t match any of the trainers we found in Bradley Wiseman’s house.’

  ‘Do you have enough for a match if we bring in a suspect?’

  Harrison paused.

  ‘There were a couple of possible distinguishing marks, but they might just be artefacts.’

  Warren made a note to seize any trainers from any of the suspects they brought in for questioning. At least they could rule out Lenny Seacole – his feet were huge.

  ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘There is a substantial volume of blood on the T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms that we found balled up in Wiseman’s laundry bin. There was also blood on his hands and some on his face, although it was smeared as if he’d tried to clean it off. There wasn’t any under his fingernails either, which seems a bit unusual, but we did find some cotton fibres that look as though they match the discarded T-shirt.’

  ‘Could he have used the T-shirt to clean under his nails?’

  ‘Perhaps, although it seems a bit odd that he took so much care over his nails but only partially washed off the blood on his hands. And why would he bother, when he was going to commit suicide anyway?’

  ‘Well, it would seem that he was in a disturbed frame of mind to say the least,’ suggested Warren. ‘What else?’

  ‘The recycle bin had a significant number of lager cans in it. I’ve sent them to the lab for fingerprinting. I’ll let you know when the results are back. So far, my reading of the scene is that Wiseman entered the house by the rear, kitchen door, covered in blood and carrying the butcher’s knife. He disposed of the knife in the sink and made some attempt to clean himself, probably with the T-shirt he was wearing, before heading upstairs to his bedroom. He then dumped his blood-soaked clothes in the laundry bin and climbed into bed.’

  ‘Any idea when he took the pills and booze?’

  ‘There are bloody fingerprints on the pill container and the vodka bottle, suggesting that he took them after the murder.’

  Warren considered what Harrison had told him. It seemed plausible, but it still didn’t feel right, particularly given that the hospital didn’t believe Wiseman had overdosed on his anti-psychotic medication.

  ‘What about outside the house?’

  ‘As we discovered on Friday night, the trail of blood led from the car, through a gap between two garages, up the alleyway at the rear of the house, then up the back path and into the kitchen. We found no traces of blood on either the gate or the back door.’

  ‘Which suggests that he left them open, when he went down to Hicks’ car,’ said Warren, ‘which lends credence to the fact that he wasn’t in a healthy state of mind; I doubt residents routinely leave their back doors unlocked in that neighbourhood.’

  ‘Not really my place to say. However, we did find some fibres on the rough concrete walls of the gap between the garages. So far it doesn’t look as though they match the clothes that Wiseman was wearing that night. Of course, they could be historic fibres, unrelated to this case; the gap is narrow enough that people cutting through it might rub against the walls.’

  Warren pondered Harrison’s findings.

  ‘If the fibres are from Wiseman’s accomplice, then coupled with that unknown footprint, it suggests that Wiseman’s accomplice returned to his house with him. Which raises the question, why did they disappear and leave Wiseman to face the music on his own?’

  Day 4

  Monday

  Seven-thirty a.m. and Warren had been in for almost an hour already. Susan had left for work earlier than usual that morning, and so Warren hadn’t felt guilty when the alarm went off. This year’s GCSE exams were well under way and Susan and her colleagues were running last-minute breakfast cramming sessions for stressed students. The school had a higher than average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals and, for some, the revision sessions might be the only thing stopping them from sitting an exam with a rumbling stomach.

  Warren wasn’t the only team member who had started work at the crack of dawn. As usual, Jorge Martinez and Shaun Grimshaw were living up to their reputations as ‘the Brownnose Brothers’, making sure to be seen working twice as hard as everyone else – even if it took energy drinks and extra-shot espressos to do so.

  ‘Sir, you are never going to believe this.’ Martinez was beaming from ear-to-ear. Beside him, Grimshaw handed over a ten-pound note. ‘I can’t believe the dumb shit used his own debit card to buy the murder weapon,’ he groused.

  ‘You’re right, I don’t believe it,’ said Warren.

  ‘There it is, in black and white.’ Martinez pointed his finger at his screen.

  ‘He purchased it in the Wilko up on the high street, on Wednesday 3rd June, for the princely sum of three pounds and ninety-nine pence.’

  Sure enough, buried in the middle of the list of credit and debit cards used to make purchases of knives, was a Lloyds Bank Visa debit card registered to Bradley Wiseman.

  ‘Two days before the murder,’ said Grimshaw. ‘There’s your premeditation. Unless he pulls the mental health card and gets a cushy number in Broadmoor, it looks like our boy Wiseman’s going down for life.’

  ‘So, we have a set of keys, but no address. Any suggestions how we work out what they unlock?’ asked Warren.

  The keys found in Hicks’ fridge had been fingerprinted, multiple copies made and then returned to evidence. A set of them now sat on Moray Ruskin’s desk.

  ‘I spoke to Forensics down in Welwyn, who ran them through the database.’ He brought up a hi-resolution photograph of the originals on his computer screen. ‘The smaller of the two keys is quite old, as you can see from the rust. The good news is that it is of a type used for garages. The same sort of garages that the council rent out to tenants.’

  ‘That fits with it being a lock-up,’ said Mallucci, who was sitting in on the meeting, ‘I’d imagine that’s where he kept his drugs.’

  ‘That’s the good news. What’s the bad news?’ asked Warren.

  ‘The key is so old that the council no longer has a record of which garage it fits,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that Hicks’ name appears on their list of leaseholders?’ asked Hutchinson.

  ‘No. Hicks was a private tenant so he doesn’t qualify for a council lock-up,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘So, he is sub-letting it from someone who is a tenant?’ suggested Hutchinson.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ said Ruskin. ‘It’s not uncommon. Back in the Seventies and Eighties, all newly built flats in Middlesbury were assigned a lock-up, for a small, annual fee. You weren’t supposed to rent them out privately, but nobody ever checked that the user of the garage was the actual tenant. When the town expanded in the early 2000s, the council stopped building new lock-ups and even knocked some down to sell off the land to developers, so the remaining ones became much sought after. The council now charges about twelve quid rent per week, but people advertise them on Facebook for five times that.’

  ‘Dare I ask how many there are?’ asked Mallucci.

  Ruskin winced. ‘Two thousand three hundred and twenty-six.’

  A low whistle went around the room.

  ‘That’s a lot of locks to try,’ said Hutchinson.

  ‘Well we can narrow that number down,’ said Ruskin, changing the image on his screen.

  ‘This second key is to a heavy-duty padlock. Again, you’re not supposed to add your own lock, but the original ones are so crap most people do.’

  ‘So how does that help us?’ Mallucci looked annoyed. He’d made it clear that SOC wanted first crack at the lock-up and its contents – he wa
s now no doubt realising how many officers it would take to try over two thousand individual locked garages, scattered across the town, even if they made multiple copies of the keys.

  ‘It seems Kyle Hicks was a man of flamboyant tastes,’ said Ruskin. ‘These padlocks come in high-visibility fluorescent pink, green or yellow. Find a lock-up with a lurid padlock and you’ve found your garage.’

  Day 5

  Tuesday

  Warren had a spring in his step as he left for work first thing. Despite himself, he found himself agreeing with Shaun Grimshaw’s statement on the night of the murder: it was nice to get an easy one now and again.

  Bradley Wiseman was still not fit to be interviewed, but he had continued to make progress. Warren didn’t mind too much; the man wasn’t going anywhere and the longer he remained in hospital, the more time the team had to build their case against him. When the doctors finally pronounced him well enough to speak, Warren was hopeful that he could be arrested and charged easily within the ninety-six hours set out under the PACE regulations. A solicitor had already been appointed on the man’s behalf, although he had yet to receive instructions from his client. Warren expected a request for disclosure of evidence soon.

  Despite their apparent success, part of Warren felt saddened at how the case would play out in the press. Every time somebody with a mental illness was implicated in such a violent crime, sections of the media would jump on the story. Warren sympathised with Wiseman’s social worker; most schizophrenics were no more dangerous than anyone else in the population. If anything, they were more likely to be the victims of violent crime, rather than the perpetrators. Unfortunately, whatever role Wiseman’s illness had or hadn’t played in his actions, for much of the media – and by extension its consumers – the link between the words ‘schizophrenic’ and ‘murderer’ would be reinforced still further. The attitude of Shaun Grimshaw, a man who should know better, was a good example.

  ‘Sweetheart, can you drag the bins out? I forgot to do it last night.’ Susan’s shout disturbed Warren’s musings. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what bin was being collected that week. He opened the calendar app on his phone. Blue recycle bins this week – the smaller black, general waste bin was next week.