by L M Krier
Rob shook his head. ‘I’d be surprised, boss. For one thing, his visits are scarce so it’s hard to see when they could have come up with such a plan between them. But I’ll go and talk to him again and I’ll check his alibi for all of the dates.’
‘The most time-consuming thing is going to be the fact that Warren is what they call a Listener. Like a Samaritan. Someone for troubled prisoners to talk to. He’s only been doing that role for a couple of years but he’s already clocked up quite a lot of them. He seems to be good at it. He’s taken on more responsibility for helping to train new Listeners.
‘The prisoners he sees in his Listener role, it’s always one to one, in their cell, so they could be saying anything to each other in those sessions. We need to go through that list and start by checking anyone else on it who’s now been released, then looking at their alibis for the arsons. Charlie and Graham, that might be one for you to start with, as you’re new to the case.
‘It seems Warren only got into religion a couple of years ago when the current chaplain started there. The chaplain, Father Archer, seems to be more approachable than the old one, and he’s been a driving force in building up the Listener scheme, which is where Warren got involved.
‘Now, my old school-friend, Martin Wellman, who’s serving time for assault, is going to help out by trying to get close to Warren through that scheme. He’ll let me know what he can find out, if anything.
‘Of course, at some point soon, one of us is going to need to talk to the chaplain to see if he knows anything useful. More importantly, if he’s prepared to tell us, or if he’s going to claim the sanctity of the confessional.
‘And speaking of priests and issues of confidentiality, are we any further forward in finding Lucy Robson, either through the church or through other means?’
Eric Morgan shook his head. ‘Not really, guv, though not for want of trying. Amelie and I went to see Byrne’s old parish priest again, and then back to his last one, to see if we could find out anything, even gossip, to tell us why he might have moved away without trying to contact Lucy.
‘We also went back to the home to see whether they could tell us if she’d tried to contact him. If she’d ever had chance to slip away by herself, for any reason. The type of relationship seemed to be news to them. They’d thought he was just a kindly neighbour who looked after her when her mother couldn’t. They did say the girl who told us about it, Jennifer, wasn’t usually one to make up stories. Certainly not ones on that scale, at any rate. But we’re a bit back to square one with Lucy because they never saw her again after she left and they never had any contact with Byrne in the first place.
‘They had a few cards from her to start with. Saying she had a part-time job working with animals, and doing some training. But then even those dried up. Postmarked in the Manchester area, but that’s all they could tell us. And no, they didn’t keep any of them.’
‘And what about the landscape gardeners and tree surgeons?’
‘Making contact with all of them gradually, boss. General enquiries, checking their location at the time of the various findings of body parts,’ Jo told him. ‘We’re slowly getting through them. There’s just this Tam Lee that’s proving a bit elusive. No response at all to various phone messages.’
‘Right, I’ll take that one,’ Ted was keen to find an excuse to get out of the office for a bit. ‘I’ll have a run out up there and see if there’s anyone at home.’
He looked round the room at the team members, then said, ‘Amelie, you come with me for this. Let’s see if we can’t run down the mysterious Tam Lee.’
Ted handed Amelie the keys to his service vehicle and asked her, ‘I take it you’re safe enough to drive now you’re wearing your glasses?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right, you drive, I’ll direct you. It’s not far and I know the way.’
Ted liked to see how people drove. It told him a lot about them. He didn’t make small talk, simply gave directions, so as not to distract Amelie. She was competent and careful. Which was just as well, as the lanes they were taking got narrower the further off the main road they went.
They found the property they were looking for easily enough. A small isolated cottage, with a pocket handkerchief front garden and a track at the side clearly leading to the rear of the property. A wooden board on a post by the front gate announced, ‘Tam Lee. Tree surgeon. Landscape architect/gardener. Free estimates. No job too small,’ followed by a mobile telephone number. The one which had so far failed to get any response.
Amelie tucked the car carefully into the end of the track so it was off the road and not likely to hamper any traffic. It would also effectively block in any vehicles round the back, which might have advantages.
She made to follow Ted through the front gate, but he stood aside for her to go first, hoping she wasn’t a militant feminist who might object to the gesture on principle. Ted’s dad had brought him with old-fashioned values. They tended to stick. Amelie thanked him, with no sign of taking offence. They walked the few short steps to the front door and knocked. Several times.
‘What now, sir?’
‘Boss is fine, Amelie, especially out of the office. Come on, let’s take a look round the back while we’re here, then we haven’t had a wasted trip.’
This time Ted did put himself in front. He had no particular reason to expect danger but as the senior officer, and a former SFO, he prepared to lead the way to see what might be waiting for them behind the house.
The land behind was surprisingly extensive. The plot was not particularly wide, but it seemed to go on for quite some way back from the road. At the end of the track was a large timber building which clearly served as a garage and workshop. The doors were standing open, showing a tidily organised space with a concrete floor.
Further away from the house, the land was divided up into small paddocks. The first one held a couple of white goats. Behind that, Ted could see two spotted pigs happily snuffling in the dirt.
In front of the first of the animal enclosures, a woman was pegging washing out on a line. The space between them and her was filled with chickens scratching and pecking the ground, as well as a goose and gander, who started to kick up a fuss as soon as they spotted intruders.
‘Oh my god, I hate geese. I’m terrified of them,’ Amelie said in a low voice, tucking in close behind Ted, even though he was no taller than she was, so not much of a shield. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘It’s fine, Amelie. Just stay behind me. You’ll be fine.’
Ted walked forward calmly, looking straight at the gander who waddled closer, hissing ominously. Ted wasn’t worried about geese. Had it been a dog, especially a big one, he would have wanted to hide behind Amelie.
The woman turned to look at them and called out, ‘Watch out for the gander. He likes to get behind you and peck your bum if you’re not careful.’
That made Amelie change her position rapidly and scuttle in front of Ted so he was protecting her from behind.
‘We’re looking for Tam Lee. Is he here?’ she asked.
‘No,’ the woman replied, going back to pegging out the washing.
Amelie frowned. ‘The board outside says this is his address. Will he be back at some point?’
‘No, he won’t.’
Ted picked up on the inflection immediately, but decided to wait to see how Amelie would get on. It was good training for her, if nothing else, dealing with a hostile witness.
‘I don’t understand. How can we get in touch with him, then, if he doesn’t answer his phone and he isn’t here?’
Ted decided to intervene. ‘I’m sorry for the confusion. Tam Lee is a woman, I take it. Is it you?’
‘Give the man a coconut,’ she said, hanging out the last of the washing. ‘No, it’s not me. But yes, Tam is a woman. Just imagine. A mere woman capable of doing tree surgery.’
She turned to look at them with a critical eye, which lingered a moment longer on Ted.
‘Who are you, and what do you want? Tam doesn’t like people just turning up here out of the blue.’
‘DCI Darling and DC Foster. Stockport Police,’ Ted told her, pulling out his photo ID, as Amelie did the same. ‘We wanted to talk to Ms Lee about the reported theft of a number of items of equipment, including a chainsaw.’
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Now she was facing them, Ted could see how painfully thin she was. Dark circles under her eyes. Sunken cheeks. Teeth which appeared prominent and made her face look skeletal. There was fine down on her cheeks and jawline. It was hard to estimate her age because of how she looked. Early twenties, perhaps.
‘Why did you need to come out here and ask about it? Tam’s already spoken to some police officers about it. You need to speak to her.’
‘We’re looking at it in connection with other cases which might possibly be linked in some way. When would be a convenient time for us to come and talk to Ms Lee about it, please? We have tried leaving messages but we haven’t had a response.’
‘Tam said she got pissed off waiting for you lot to do something. It’s been ages since the stuff was taken. She said you kept her waiting long enough to get a crime number to give to the insurers so she could claim the money to buy replacements. That’s probably why she doesn’t want to talk to you any more.’
‘Hopefully we can do something to restore her faith in the police service.’ Ted took out one of his cards and handed it to her. ‘Perhaps you could get her to contact me, whenever it’s convenient. And please pass on my apologies for the lack of progress. May we have your name, please?’
Amelie was hovering, trying to pick up clues from Ted about what she was meant to be doing. As he asked the question, she whipped out her pocket book and stood, pen poised, glad that there was something she could do.
‘Cyane,’ the woman replied, then seeing Amelie hesitate, she spelled it slowly.
‘Is that a first name or a second name?’ Amelie asked her.
‘First name. Second name is Lee. Would you like me to spell that out for you? Tam and I are married. So we have the same surname.’
There was no hint of sarcasm in the way she said it. More like someone trying to be helpful. Something in the way she spoke made Ted wonder if she was younger than he’d first thought.
Amelie flushed but wrote it down without saying anything.
Ted thanked her and stood looking round him.
‘It’s a nice place you have here. Quiet. I’ve driven down here a couple of times but never really looked. I live in Offerton.’
‘We like it. It’s very quiet. We don’t like visitors dropping in.’
‘Nice looking pigs, too. Are they Gloucester Old Spots?’
She looked at him in surprise for a moment before the shutters came down again and the wariness was back. She nodded briefly.
‘Right, we won’t take up any more of your time, Ms Lee. Thank you for all your help, and it would really be helpful if your wife would be kind enough to give me a call at some point.’
She had thrust his card into a pocket without looking at it, so he wasn’t optimistic.
He stood aside to let Amelie go first as they left, mindful of the warning about the gander’s preferred method of attack, but they regained the car in safety. Ted stayed quiet until Amelie had successfully backed out into the narrow road. Then he asked her, ‘What did you make of that?’
‘She was very passive-aggressive wasn’t she, sir? And she mostly told us about what Tam thought or said, not so much about herself. Why do you think she seemed hostile towards us? Fear of the police? A dislike of people in general?’
‘I don’t know. But I certainly think it would be worth our time to have a look a little more closely into Cyane Lee and her background.’
Chapter Twenty-three
‘Have you heard of Betula nigra?’
Ted was used to Bizzie Nelson’s abrupt and sometimes cryptic openers. He’d only just arrived in his office, early, as usual, and was busy shaking the worst of the rain from his trench coat. Even in the short sprint from his car to the nick, he’d got a good soaking. It was bucketing down outside.
‘Black something, but I don’t know what. Animal, vegetable or mineral?’ Ted asked her.
‘A tree,’ she told him. ‘More commonly known as black birch or river birch. Not exactly rare but certainly not common. The sort of thing the Victorians loved to collect to plant in the arboretum no self-respecting stately home owner was without. It has a distinctive flaky cinnamon-coloured bark, said to resemble peeling skin.’
‘And that’s what’s been found on our body parts?’
‘It is indeed. It doesn’t usually require much maintenance in the form of pollarding or the like. But it may well require attention in the event of something like disease or storm damage. Small traces of it were found on our body parts, together with some much more common trees. Particularly traces of Fraxinus excelsior, the ash tree. Diseased traces, in that case, to be precise. You’ve probably heard of the dieback disease which is affecting the native ash? It’s feared it might attack as much as ninety-five per cent of them. Infected trees need to be removed as a matter of priority and it’s widespread, so those fibres are unlikely to help you pin down an area, like our more rare friend might.
‘However, dealing with dying ash trees is highly specialised work. Ash trees snap quite easily even when healthy. Diseased ones can shed limbs or even collapse completely. So attending to them is a job for a skilled tree surgeon, not just anyone armed with a chainsaw. Particularly in public areas with the inherent risks. And it’s a very common tree. Or was until the numbers started to be decimated. There are still several millions of them left, though.’
‘That’s great news for us, Bizzie, thank you. If we can find out where those black birch trees are growing and who does their maintenance, we might finally be on to something with the body parts.’
‘Excellent, I’m happy to have helped. Now, onto your unfortunate victim from the latest arson. I understand there’s no ID on this one yet?’
‘Not yet, no. All I know is that he was a homeless man known locally as Dirty Len, who might possibly have been ex-Forces, and also might have had PTSD. We’re hoping that if that’s true, we might get a DNA match through military records. But anything at all to come out of the PM will potentially help us, so we need you to work your usual magic, please.’
‘I’m planning on doing it first thing tomorrow morning. Who are you sending along?’
‘I might take it myself, if nothing else comes up in the meantime. I’m feeling a bit detached from the case at the moment.’
‘Splendid. I’ll look forward to seeing you. At least I know I don’t have to remind you what I mean by first thing. I shall see you here tomorrow, then.’
Once all the team members had arrived, Ted went out to join them. Time to pool findings and ideas to see what progress, if any, they were making. He kicked things off with news of their visit to Tam Lee’s premises the day before, then mentioned the update from the Professor on the tree fibres and the two different species isolated and identified.
‘Jo, we now need to find out where in our area these trees grow and who’s been contracted to do any work on them recently. Start locally, but we may have to spread the net wider if they don’t grow close to us here. We need the date of any such work, and we need to start by comparing that to the date when Tam Lee reported her equipment missing. She may just be cold-shouldering us because she didn’t get the prompt response she wanted. If such work was done prior to her reporting the theft, then she becomes a person of interest to us and we’ll need to up our efforts to speak to her.
‘I think we need to attempt to rule her in or out first, before we consider examining all the equipment of other firms. She may, of course, have nothing to do with our body parts. It could be the person who stole her equipment who’s responsible. But let’s try to establish that for sure.’
‘Sir, I spent a lot of time yesterday, after we go
t back, trying to find out about Cyane Lee, as you asked, since she’s our only connection to Tam Lee at the moment,’ Amelie told him. ‘I don’t think I made any mistakes in checking, but the weird thing is, she doesn’t seem to exist. At all. Not on our records under that name. Not on the electoral roll. No National Insurance Number. No driving licence or passport. Nothing. And she’s not the other company employee registered with Companies House, either.’
‘She’s not Tam Lee, is she?’ Jezza asked, voicing what a few of them were thinking. ‘The same person, just messing you about for some reason?’
Ted looked across at Amelie. ‘Would you like to tell us your thoughts on that, Amelie? Just say what you think. Don’t be worried about getting it wrong. I’d be interested to hear your opinion.’
She looked awkward. ‘I’m trying not to be judgemental here, sir, because I know you don’t like it, and it’s generally not a good way to work. But I don’t see how Cyane can possibly be Tam Lee, the tree surgeon. She looked ill to me. Incredibly thin, and not in a strong and wiry sort of way. Weak. Exhausted, perhaps. I honestly thought she looked as if pegging out the washing was about the limit of her physical capabilities. I’m really struggling to picture her going up ladders with a chainsaw.’
Ted nodded his approval. ‘Thank you. That was my impression too. And it wasn’t judgemental. I was asking you to give your opinion.’
‘But boss, what if the illness is recent? That might explain why Tam Lee isn’t responding to messages on her business number.’ Jezza suggested.
‘It would have to be a pretty dramatic illness to lay her low like that, from what Amelie said, if that really was Tam Lee you were speaking to,’ Virgil put in. ‘According to the council, she did some contract work for them just last month. That was diseased ash trees, too. Although no mention of the other one. That timeline doesn’t fit, anyway. Tam Lee’s equipment was reported stolen some time ago so the chainsaw she’s using now must be a replacement.’
