Down Down Down

by L M Krier

  His mouth opened in surprise. ‘Lucy? Is it really you?’

  Then he swept her off her feet and swung her round, hugging her close, his face split by a smile of evident delight.

  Tam parked the truck and got out. She stood for a moment, watching the two of them, both of them laughing, shedding a tear or two. Their joy at being reunited was obvious to see. Tam’s face was a stony mask as she watched and waited for either of them to pay her any attention.

  ‘My little Lucy. I tried to find you. Many times. They wouldn’t tell me where you’d been taken. And then I had to move away. I never thought I’d see you again.’

  ‘I’m Tam,’ she stepped forward possessively. ‘I’m Lucy’s wife.’

  Byrne let go of Lucy and stepped back, surprised. Lucy laughed. A child-like sound.

  ‘Oh, it’s only pretend. Like I did with you that time. Tam knows I’m going to marry you. And now I’ve found you again, so I can do. Can’t I, Tam?’

  ‘Of course you can, love. And I’ll be your bridesmaid, just like we always said. Look, Bernie, if you don’t have to be somewhere, why not come to the house with us now? Have some tea? I can run you back to wherever you need to be afterwards. It’s no bother. And you must know how much Lucy has been looking forward to seeing you again. I’ve heard nothing but Bernie this, Bernie that, ever since I’ve known her. Come on, hop in. Lucy, love, you squash up in the middle. We’ll be there in two ticks, Bernie. It’s not far.’

  ‘Poor thing. She was that excited about finding you again it completely tired her out. I think she’ll sleep like a log tonight. Look, I’m in the middle of framing some of Lucy’s pictures for her. We sell some of them, to get her a bit of pin money. Come into the workshop before I run you home. You can pick one out to take with you. She’ll do you lots more, now you’re going to be together again. But take one with you for now, to keep her in your thoughts.

  ‘They’re on the end of the bench there, look.’

  Bernie strode eagerly in front of Tam, heading for the tidy pile of prints and frames, ready to be finished off. He never heard or suspected a thing. Never even sensed her quietly pick up the heavy hammer from the workbench. The first thing he knew was the terrible crushing pain as it made contact with the back of his skull and laid him full-length on the concrete floor, out cold.

  When he came to, the pain and confusion gave way to panic. His mouth was stuffed with a gag and his whole head was encased in a clear plastic bag, tied tightly round his neck. Every ragged, panic-stricken breath he drew emptied it of a bit more of the oxygen his brain and body were desperately craving.

  He was sitting in a rush-bottomed kitchen chair, his lower limbs tied tightly to its legs, his wrists lashed securely to the wooden armrests at either side.

  Tam Lee was standing in front of him. Her face was expressionless, her voice quietly conversational.

  ‘I’ve painted your toenails for you. So they look nice. Just like you used to do for Lucy. She told me all about that, too. She always buys the same muck to do them herself, to remember you by. That revolting Racy Rouge stuff.’

  She stopped talking for a moment. When Bernie saw the heavy-duty tree loppers in her hand he tried to scream, making the plastic bag stick to his face as he drew breath to do so. The front of his trousers darkened as he lost bladder control.

  ‘Four years Cy has been with me now. Four years of me having to listen to her gushing on about you and how one day you’d come back and marry her.’

  She closed the jaws of the loppers round the little finger of his right hand and started to apply pressure.

  ‘Four years of listening to every sick detail of what you used to do to her with these hands.’

  As the cutters closed, Byrne passed out. He was dead – suffocated – before she’d reached and removed the thumb.

  She’d found a large sheet of polythene at the back of the garage and spread it carefully over the floor before she began. When she untied the body, she allowed it to slump to the ground, onto the sheet, before going to get her chainsaw.

  She worked as quickly and efficiently as she would on any tree. When she’d finished, she went for a shower, put all her clothes in a bin bag, then went into the bedroom she shared with Lucy.

  Still naked, she slid between the sheets and moved her body close to that of her sleeping partner. Arms folded around her, hands gently stroking her sleeping form.

  When she woke in the morning, dressed and went downstairs, she left a note for Cy.

  ‘Hello, sleepyhead.

  ‘You were fast asleep when I got back from dropping Bernie off so I didn’t wake you.

  ‘I’ll be home at the usual time tonight.

  ‘Love you lots,

  ‘Tam.

  ‘PS I’ve fed the pigs. They won’t need any more today.’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Big Jim Baker was back, talking to Ted and Jo about the latest developments.

  ‘Have we got enough to at least arrest her on suspicion? For insurance fraud and for the murder of Byrne, if nothing else? That tooth’s going to be hard to explain away,’ Ted said.

  ‘She’ll try saying it’s one of her own, or Lucy’s, no doubt.’

  ‘And she’ll know that we can’t just look in their mouths like horses, Jo,’ Jim grunted.

  ‘But we can ask Lucy which dentist they use,’ Ted put in. ‘If we can track down the right one, we might even be able to get a look at their dental records this evening. Otherwise we risk running out of time to hold her for anything. Insurance fraud, maybe, but we’re hardly going to get a remand in custody on that, which is what I’d prefer to get.

  ‘We won’t get DNA from the tooth until this time tomorrow at the earliest, for a positive ID. But we can at least pre-empt her attempts at a smoke screen. We’ll do better with the chainsaw, though. Hers were the only prints found on it, so we can show strong evidence that she was the last person to handle it. The bloke who picked it up at the tip left it wrapped in the sheeting once he’d seen what it was. And there are traces of Byrne’s DNA on the chain. That’s going to be even harder to explain away than the tooth.

  ‘Doug’s quite happy to work on half the night if he has to. You know what he’s like, especially when he knows we’re up against the clock. We hoped he might find something of interest in the freezer, as we know the body parts were frozen in a domestic one. And in a sense he did.

  ‘I noticed a chest freezer in a corner of the garage. Doug says it was empty, switched off, and smelling strongly of bleach. He tried switching it back on, out of interest, but the motor wouldn’t run. We’ve been wondering all along why Tam, or whoever it was, dumped the body parts so close together in time. It could well be that the freezer broke down so she needed to get rid of them quickly. No doubt the freezer would have ended up at the tip as well, in due course.’

  ‘Is she likely to crack and confess?’ Jim asked.

  Ted and Jo replied almost in unison.

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘If we arrest her for something now, we can start the clock for the twenty-four hours. So who’s going to interview her? Will you leave Rob and Virgil on it or bring in fresh troops?’

  ‘I thought I might have a go myself,’ Ted replied. ‘Rob and Virgil have done a great job. I can’t fault them. But it’s got us nowhere, so it’s perhaps time for a different approach.’

  ‘D’you know what? I think I might sit in with you,’ Jim told him. ‘It’s been so long since I did any proper coppering I’ve forgotten what it’s all about.’

  ‘The dream team back together again?’ Jo commented. ‘Now this I have to see. I’ll watch via the monitors, if neither of you objects?’

  ‘First we need to sort out the dental records, and anything else we can think of that she might try to use as an excuse. If we can block every avenue of evasion, she might finally realise the best option would be to admit it. Ted, make sure she gets a solicitor. Even if she says she doesn’t want one. I want this done by the book so we don’
t lose our chance on a technicality. We all know that happens far too often.

  ‘It’s likely to be a late session, so we’d better warn our nearest and dearest. I’m glad of the excuse, if I’m honest. Bella has a wild idea that I should try again with the line dancing malarkey. Not bloody likely, after the last time.

  ‘And I’m betting anything, Ted, that you’re looking for a chance to avoid your Trev seeing that bruise that’s coming out on your face. Because he’s going to want to know how that happened to you of all people. Probably as much as the rest of us do.’

  Ted gave a guilty grin. ‘You know me too well, Jim. But just remember – I know your secrets too.’

  Jim covered the moment by pulling out his phone. Ted and Jo did the same.

  ‘Bella, love. It’s James. Sorry, but I’m going to be late tonight. Something’s come up. Yes, I know, I was looking forward to it, too.’

  He winked at the other two as he said it.

  ‘Sofia, mi querida, it’s your darling husband Jorge.’

  Jo held his phone away from his ear to avoid the loud torrent of Spanish which immediately assailed him. His wife clearly knew from his tone why he was calling her.

  ‘Trev, it’s me. Look, I’m very sorry but it’s likely to be a late one tonight. We’re on the clock to charge or release. But I will make it up to you. Promise.’

  As all three of them finished their calls, the other two looked at Ted.

  ‘How many times have you promised him that?’ Big Jim asked him.

  ‘I’ve lost track,’ Ted confessed. ‘But I’m taking him on a proper holiday this year. Something he’s going to love. We’re going, come what may.’

  It was a long session and a tough one. On the advice of her solicitor, Tam Lee was even more determined to say nothing more than ‘no comment’ to every question Ted and Jim Baker put to her. Occasionally she tried to be clever and respond, but her legal advisor jumped in to stop her whenever she could.

  Ted was speaking quietly as ever, his tone patient and reasonable.

  ‘You see, Ms Lee, the problem we have, on both counts, is that there are no fingerprints on the chainsaw, which you reported as stolen, other than yours. And as you know we have those on record from your previous offences.’

  Tam Lee shrugged and managed to say, ‘So the thief wore gloves,’ before her solicitor silenced her, reminding her she didn’t need to say anything at this stage.

  ‘But that wouldn’t work, of course,’ Ted continued. ‘Anyone handling it after you would have effectively smudged your prints, if they were wearing gloves. Or if they weren’t, they would have left their own prints. We didn’t find any others. And no glove prints. Which leaves a strong probability that you were the last person to have handled that chainsaw. This means that you reporting it stolen and making a claim, as you’ve already admitted you did, is a potential case of insurance fraud.’

  When she opened her mouth to speak this time, the solicitor put a restraining hand on her arm. Tam yanked it away from the contact and glared at her.

  Jim Baker took over, his voice a deep growl in contrast to Ted’s quiet and seemingly hesitant tone.

  ‘Now we come to the murder of Bartholomew Byrne. Also known as Bernie. The man with whom your partner, Lucy Robson, was having an inappropriate relationship before she met you.’

  ‘Told you. Never heard of him,’ she said, throwing a defiant look at her solicitor. ‘And Cyane Lee is my wife. Whoever Lucy Robson is, she’s not my partner.’

  ‘The person you call Cyane Lee has admitted to us that she was formerly called Lucy Robson. That she lived, after her mother died, in a children’s home. That home was situated on a road lined by trees. Trees which the council tell us you were paid to maintain.’

  Tam made a dismissive gesture with one hand, but Jim Baker ploughed on.

  ‘And unfortunately for you, the man you work with, Jimmy Crick, has already told us that you met Cy when she lived in that children’s home. She lived there as Lucy Robson, although she liked to call herself Cy.

  ‘Cy, or Lucy Robson, consented in writing to giving us her fingerprints. They were compared to prints taken from a painting done by Lucy Robson which is displayed in her old form room at school. The prints match. We therefore have proof that your partner Cyane is indeed Lucy Robson.’

  Tam shot to her feet, her face dark with anger. Even her solicitor looked anxious. Ted rose instantly.

  ‘Sit down please, Ms Lee.’

  He said it as quietly as ever. But there was something about the way he said it that made her hesitate, then sink slowly back onto her chair. As she did so, the solicitor edged her own chair a little further away from her client, as surreptitiously as she could.

  ‘I’ve told you. You shouldn’t be speaking to Cy without someone with her. She’ll say whatever she thinks you want her to.’

  Ted resumed his seat and took over the questioning again.

  ‘Ms Lee, can you explain, please, why we would have found a human tooth in the pig run at your property?’

  ‘You really don’t have to answer any questions, Tam,’ her solicitor told her again.

  Tam shrugged. ‘I can answer that easily enough. The boar gets a bit arsey sometimes. He head-butted me while I was bending over to feed him. It knocked my tooth out.’

  ‘Which tooth was that?’

  She made to reply but her solicitor cut in. ‘Is there a point to this line of questioning, Chief Inspector?’ Then, to her client, ‘I strongly advise you to make no responses at this time.’

  ‘There is a point, yes. Because, of course, it’s possible to check with dental records to establish certain facts. Which dentist do you use, Ms Lee?’

  Ignoring further warnings from her solicitor, she glibly trotted out a name different to the one Lucy Robson had given them.

  ‘The problem is, Ms Lee, that Lucy has already given us the name of a dentist you both use.’

  She looked on the point of exploding again. Ted carried on calmly, ‘And we have already spoken to that dentist and had access to your dental records. The tooth which we found contained a filling, and not a recent one. Your dental records clearly show that the corresponding tooth in your mouth has never been filled. Certainly not long ago enough for it to be a match.’

  ‘I would like to request some time alone with my client. Now, please.’

  Jim Baker spoke again. ‘I think that’s a good idea. I also think that we’ve now reached the threshold where we can arrest Ms Lee on suspicion of the murder of Bartholomew Byrne, and of attempting to defraud an insurance company by falsely claiming theft of property.

  ‘Ms Lee, I won’t, at this point, object to your release on police bail. However, your home is currently a crime scene so of course you won’t be able to return there. We’ll arrange for somewhere for you to stay tonight and there will be a watch on that location at all times. You are not free to leave it. You’ll be brought back for further questioning at some point tomorrow, when we expect to have further results from forensics. I have to warn you there is a strong possibility that you will be charged with both offences.’

  ‘Where’s Cy? I need to be with Cy. She’ll be worried and confused.’

  ‘She’s been moved to a safe place and is being looked after there. I’m afraid that at this point you won’t be able to see her. There is a likelihood of her being called to testify against you.’

  This time Tam shot to her feet so abruptly her chair went over backwards. Her solicitor leapt up at the same time and jumped to the side. Ted was only seconds behind Tam in timing and moved to stand squarely in front of her.

  ‘You need to calm down, Ms Lee. Now. You’re not helping yourself.’

  For a moment she hesitated, looking for all the world as if she was about to throw a punch at him.

  ‘A charge of assaulting a police officer really isn’t what you need right now. That could very well get you a remand in custody.’

  ‘You can’t make Cy testify against me. She’s my wife.�
��

  ‘Not officially though, is she?’ Ted said reasonably. ‘You may have had a ceremony but there’s no record of a marriage between you which would be recognised by a court of law.

  ‘I think what you need to do now is to have a long talk with your solicitor and consider all your options very carefully. We’ll then arrange for you to be taken somewhere to stay for the night. Any items you need will be found for you, but you are not free to return to your home, nor to attempt to make any contact with Cyane, also known as Lucy Robson. Do you understand that, Ms Lee?’

  Ted had chosen Virgil to go with him to visit the chaplain. An arrest, if it came to that, would be a good tick for him and he hadn’t had one in a while. They met up at the nick early and took Ted’s service vehicle. They wanted to catch Archer at home before he left for work at the prison.

  By the time Ted had got home the previous evening, Trev had been in bed, fast asleep. Only Adam had noticed him creep in.

  With Ted’s early start, there was no chance of Trev having been awake, which meant he’d not yet seen the bruising to his face, so he hadn’t had to explain himself. He felt bad enough about the statement he’d given about the incident. But he’d promised Martin a favour in return for his help, so now his friend would be comfortably locked away for longer. Most prisoners were keen to get out at the end of their sentence. A few, like Martin, whose circumstances were bleak on the outside, were quite happy to stay where they were.

  At least Martin would plead guilty, which meant that Ted wouldn’t have to give evidence in court and risk perjuring himself.

  The chaplain’s car was still outside his house. Graham and Charlie’s car was parked in the road. They were keeping an eye on the property. Ted and Virgil went over to tell them they’d arrived to arrest him.