A Time to Kill (P&R14)

by Tim Ellis

  His mind began churning over what she’d said. It was now Friday, and the alleged rape had occurred on Wednesday morning – two days. ‘Have you had a shower since then, Giselle?’

  ‘Yes, the nurses let me have a shower this morning. Oh! You think I’ve destroyed any evidence that would prove he raped me, don’t you?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see, shall we? Is there a nurse there I can speak to?’

  ‘Just a minute.’

  It was quiet for a handful of seconds and then a female said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ she threw back at him with a Welsh twang

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Gilbert from Hoddesdon Police Station.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I’m Nurse Mandy Barry from . . . well, here. Although I originally come from . . . Why am I talking to you?’

  ‘Do you know why Giselle is in hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A man brought her in to the A&E on Wednesday morning – she’s now saying that he raped her during the journey. Is it possible you can carry out a rape kit examination?’

  ‘It’s possible, but whether we’ll find anything after . . .’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘I’ll speak to the Staff Nurse. We’ll get one of the nurses from A&E who specialise in rape kit tests to come up.’

  ‘And don’t forget Giselle’s clothes. If they’re not in individual plastic bags already, could you do that for me?’

  ‘Bring chocolates – I particularly like Maltesers.’

  ‘You’ll be the proud owner of a large box of Maltesers, Nurse Barry.’

  ‘Anything else you’d like me to do?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Thanks for your help. Can you pass me back to Giselle?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Giselle. The nurse is going to arrange for someone to come and take swabs from you . . .’

  ‘You mean – down there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘They’re also going to take your clothes away, so you’d better ask your parents to bring in some clean clothes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m on my way in to take a full statement from you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He had a number of calls to make, but he phoned Jen first.

  ‘Detective Constable D’Arcy speaking.’

  Her voice made his heart sing. ‘You were up and out early, Detective.’

  ‘You looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’ll be careful?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if you need back-up, mon amour?’

  ‘I know very well who to call, Monsieur.’

  Next, he phoned the Chief’s temporary secretary – Lydia O’Brien. ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

  ‘Is the Chief in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does he know about DI Tubman?’

  ‘No, and he’s not in today.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll just carry on then, shall I?’

  ‘That would probably be the thing to do.’

  He phoned Traffic and asked them to look for anything they might have along the A10 on CCTV from Wednesday morning involving Giselle Hamill or a silver X-Type Jaguar and gave them the registration number of Ross’ car.

  His final phone call was to Sergeant Catalano.

  ‘You’ve got news?’ she said.

  ‘No, but I do have a detective on the ground.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I said I would, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you did. What can I do for you now, Rowley?’

  ‘I need a man picking up and locking in the cells until I can get there to interview him.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Allegedly raping Giselle Hamill while passing himself off as a good Samaritan.’

  ‘Filthy bastard. Name and address?’

  ‘The man you ran the number plate on yesterday: Andrew Ross, 54 Forest Lane, Chigwell.’

  ‘He’ll have one of those expensive solicitors, so you’d better have a stack of evidence to nail him to the wall.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get the evidence.’

  ‘All right. I’ll send a squad car to ask him if he’d be so kind as to join us for a chat.’

  ‘Also . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A search warrant to seize his car for forensic examination.’

  ‘You’re not trying to get me involved in a malicious procurement of a search warrant, are you?’

  ‘I never would.’

  ‘I hope not. I have enough problems of my own already.’

  He gave her the details for the search warrant and she wrote them down as he spoke.

  ‘Okay. Tell me that’s everything?’

  ‘That’s everything. Thanks, Rosanne.’

  He clambered out of bed, had a shower and got dressed. He felt a lot better than he had earlier. After two pieces of toast and an orange juice, he left the house, climbed into his car and made his way to the hospital. Before reaching the A414, he called in at the local newsagents to purchase a large box of Maltesers.

  He had disagreed with DI Tubman’s idea that the murders might be related to the victims, but he also knew that he could be wrong. How had the hooded man known Alice Wheatley and Brandon Yagin’s names? If they weren’t random killings, then what were they? He needed to ask Giselle Hamill whether the killer had called them by name. If he had, maybe there was a connection between all three victims and the killer – and the man was a killer now, not merely a psychopathic bystander who liked to masturbate while others did the killing.

  Then there was the DNA from the garrotte. He hoped Doc Paine had found something. After he’d been to see Giselle, he’d go down to the mortuary and ask her if she had any good news for him.

  He’d have to be careful interviewing Andrew Ross though. Unlike DI Tubman, he doubted very much that Ross was the killer. If he’d wanted to rape Giselle, he could quite easily have done it at the crime scene.

  So, he was on his own again. He hoped the Chief didn’t give him anyone else, especially not another DI Tubman. He’d just wait for Xena to come back – that would be the thing to do.

  ***

  ‘You smell nice.’

  ‘No thanks to you.’

  ‘For someone who’s not talking to me, you’re doing a lot of talking.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Aren’t I the lucky one?’

  ‘Yes, you are. Where are we going?’

  ‘Number 13 Caxton Road in Hailey to speak to Dawn Marples – the manager of the Bunny Hop Playgroup.’

  Richards keyed the address into the satnav. ‘Not to the station?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have that database query waiting for me.’

  ‘Is it time-limited?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Will it self-destruct if you don’t read it by a certain time?’

  She ignored him. ‘We also have the man who took the photographs to interview – Andrew Shelton. He doesn’t live too far away.’

  ‘We’ll go and interrogate to him as well then.’

  ‘And . . . Doc Riley said she’d have something for us today on the co-mingled DNA.’

  ‘Might.’

  ‘Might what?’

  ‘Might have something for us.’

  ‘I’m not in the best of moods, you know.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me know. Is it that time of the month again?’

  ‘No it is not, and you shouldn’t ask a lady that.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right – it’s sexist. It’s because you’re making me work when I’m suffering from sleep deprivation.’

  ‘You could have called in sick, coughed down the phone a few times like a p
lague victim, talked through your nose while you explained in lurid detail how you were knocking on death’s door and waiting for the concierge to open it and usher you inside so that you could lie down with all the other poor souls.’

  ‘And that’s exactly what I would have done as well if my boss didn’t live in the same house as me.’

  ‘Yes, I can see how that might be a slight problem.’

  ‘You’re a pig.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  She glanced sideways at him. ‘I am?’

  ‘We should stop for breakfast. When was the last time I had crispy bacon surrounded by mushrooms, beans, eggs, sausages, fried bread . . .’

  ‘You’re a pig.’

  ‘Before, I was a Vietnamese Potbelly pig, but now . . . Now, I’m a hungry Essex pig.’

  They stopped at the Bits n Bites cafe on Bridleway North, which was nestled between a gift shop and a unisex hairdressers.

  He ordered the full English with toast. Richards had a bowl of Special K with semi-skimmed milk.

  ‘Poor Josh,’ she said. ‘I quite liked him.’

  ‘Quite?’

  ‘Well, there weren’t going to be any baby Marmites.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. He was nice, but he didn’t make my heart flutter.’

  ‘That’s probably because he hadn’t played with your mouse yet.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘So, what now, Richards?’

  ‘I’ll keep searching for Mr Right.’

  ‘Finding a man for you is like the quest for the Holy Grail.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think I’d have more luck finding that.’

  ‘Maybe we could hold a competition.’

  ‘With me as the prize, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, but similar to a fairy story. We could set your suitors ten impossible tasks, and the one . . .’

  ‘And I’d be the princess?’

  ‘Most definitely.’

  ‘And the winner would get the keys to the castle?’

  ‘Now who’s being disgusting?’

  ‘You started it.’ She took a swallow of her bottled water. ‘Do you think Jerry will be all right?’

  ‘Only time will tell.’

  ‘Very profound. Something else from a fortune cookie?’

  ‘Of course. I get all my best material from the Chinese takeaway.’

  Richards produced her warrant card when the door of 13 Caxton Road opened. ‘DC Richards and DI Parish to see Dawn Marples.’

  ‘I’m Dawn Marples,’ the woman in her mid-thirties filling the doorway said. She had brown hair tinged purple at the ends, a fringe that covered her eyes, obscenely large glasses perched on her nose, and more teeth than a piranha.

  ‘We’d like to speak to you about Catrina Golding.’

  ‘You’d better come in then.’

  She led them along the hallway, through a back room and into a patio with cane furniture that looked out onto a colourful back garden.

  ‘Home-made lemonade?’

  ‘No, we’re fine, thanks,’ Parish said.

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  ‘You’ve heard about the murder of . . .’ Richards began.

  ‘Of course. My husband and I were shocked and saddened by the death of one of our employees.’

  ‘I’m sure. Can you tell me about Catrina?’

  ‘What’s to tell? She’d worked for me for . . . just over two years, but she was on her way out. I’d given her a number of verbal warnings about fraternising with the men . . .’

  ‘What men?’

  ‘Parents. Sometimes the husbands drop the children off and pick them up, and then there’s the single fathers . . . Towards the end of last term, I got the feeling that she thought we were running the playgroup so that she could meet men. To be honest, I was getting sick and tired of it.’

  ‘Were there any particular men that she took a fancy to, or who took a fancy to her?’

  ‘How long have you got?’ She stared out of the window. ‘There was one single father – Luke Abraham – the father of Lettuce . . .’

  ‘Lettuce?’

  ‘You think that’s weird? We have a few other budding celebrities attending the playgroup: Gypsy Rose Linklater, Saint Chapman, Wilder Sutton and Esmeralda Smith. The poor things will have a whole cartload of psychological baggage to drag through life with them.’

  ‘Do you have an address for Luke Abraham?’

  ‘Of course.’ She left them and went back into the house.

  Parish stood up and examined a large photographic montage in a wooden frame.

  ‘My family,’ Dawn Marples said, when she returned with the address on a piece of paper and passed it to Richards.

  ‘You have two children?’

  ‘Marley and Echo.’

  ‘They’re lovely names,’ Richards said.

  ‘Distinctive rather than weird.’

  Parish turned to look at Dawn. ‘What about your husband?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Did he know Catrina?’

  ‘Know her? What’s that supposed to mean? Yes, he knew her name, but that’s the only way he knew her.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to infer anything else. Did you know that Catrina was pregnant?’

  ‘Yes. Her and her boyfriend Jimmy Landers were planning on getting married, weren’t they?’

  ‘We’ve discovered that Jimmy wasn’t the father of the baby.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And we’re trying to find out who was.’

  ‘I hope you’re not . . . ?’

  He raised his hand. ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mrs Marples, but we have to eliminate people from our enquiries as a matter of procedure.’

  ‘Martin’s not the father of that slut’s baby, I can guarantee that.’

  ‘I’d like your husband to come to the station and provide a DNA sample, so that we can cross him off our list.’

  ‘Oh God!’ She burst into tears.

  Richards moved to the sofa and began comforting her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘I caught them together . . . in our bed. Can you imagine how betrayed I felt?’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘My whole world collapsed. I threw him out, told him I never wanted to see him again.’

  ‘So he doesn’t live here anymore?’

  ‘More fool me – I took him back. He promised me it only happened that one time and it was over, but I can tell you that he didn’t father her baby because he had a vasectomy four years ago – after Echo was born.’

  ‘We still need to eliminate him from our enquiries,’ Parish interrupted. ‘So, if you could ask him to come to Hoddesdon Police Station tomorrow morning between nine and twelve, that would assist our investigation.’

  ‘You don’t think he . . . ?’

  Parish stood up. ‘We have no preconceived ideas about your husband, Mrs Marples. Just ask him to come to the police station tomorrow morning, and hopefully we can cross him off our list.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Thank you for seeing us.’ Richards said as they made their way out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jenifer slid down the seat as Bobby Catalano – hereto known as “the subject” – came out of 44 Stratfield Drive in Hoddesdon and headed towards a three year-old red Volkswagen Polo parked outside the house. She snapped a couple of photographs, which she thought might look good at the beginning of her written report.

  Before the subject switched the engine on, he used the rear-view mirror to squeeze a couple of blackheads round his mouth and make sure his spiked hair was messed up neatly. She decided not to include those inconsequential details in her written report.

  It was the rush hour, so it wasn’t difficult following the subject in a traffic jam along the A1170. She was two cars behind the Polo, and after thirty-five minutes of stop-and-start the subject pulled into a fenced-off car park belonging to DuPont Engineering Limited located between the railway line an
d New River. After parking his car, the subject joined a group of other men laughing and joking, and then went inside the building.

  Station Road had double yellow lines on both sides of the street, so she parked on a side road and used her binoculars to keep a close eye on the subject’s red VW Polo.

  Knowing what she knew about detective work and stake-outs, she’d brought a flask of tea and a packet of dark chocolate digestive biscuits with her. She also had a daily paper and the book she was half-way through on her Kindle: Deadly Ritual by DS Butler.

  It looked as though the subject was incommunicado at least until lunchtime, so she settled down to occupy her time.

  ***

  ‘Hey, Stickamundo.’

  He saw Xena waving at him from a different bed than she’d been in before – the nursing staff must have moved her. He froze. He was only four beds away from Giselle Hamill. Should he go over and talk to her? Now that he was on his own again he didn’t have a lot of time. If he did go over there she’d want to know what was happening with the case, keep him talking for ages . . . but if he didn’t go over there . . .

  ‘Hello,’ he said, sitting in a blue plastic chair.

  ‘You were thinking of walking right by me, weren’t you?’

  ‘DI Tubman was killed in a traffic accident early this morning.’

  ‘Well, I never. You’re not having much luck with partners, are you? Some superstitious people might get the idea that you’re a tiki doll – cursed, damned, doomed, touched by the Devil . . .’

  ‘I get the idea. What about you? What do you think?’

  ‘It depends on whether you’re going to update me on the case, or not. I could start spreading the rumour that you’re cursed as soon as you walk out the door. Pretty soon, nobody would touch you with a dirty stick.’

  ‘Except you?’

  ‘Oh, so now you want me back? I’ll think about it. What’s in the bag?’

  ‘A bribe.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is Jenifer coming in to see me today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? I have a whole list of things I need doing.’

  ‘She’s on a case.’

  ‘A case? Constables aren’t given cases to go on.’

  ‘A private matter.’

  ‘I’m a private matter.’