The Hard Detective (A Harriet Martens Thriller Book 1)

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Ask then. Ask.’

  ‘Very well. Will you tell me where you were yourself at about six o’clock this evening?’

  ‘I was where I am at six o’clock each and every day.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘At the mosque. For night prayer. Where else?’

  All right, there was a small mosque barely a quarter of a mile away. She had noticed its lit-up minaret on her way. If Rukshana’s father had really been there round about dusk, then he could not possibly have been waiting there all the way down at Queen Street as the home-going cars and buses had jostled for position.

  ‘Mr Syed,’ she said bluntly. ‘Can you prove that?’

  She received by way of reply a glance of such ferocity that for half a moment she thought of simply taking the rigid old man’s word for it. But, no.

  ‘I asked whether you can prove you were at your mosque this evening.’

  The silence lengthened slowly out.

  ‘Many men saw me,’ came the words at last. ‘I spoke with many. Do you wish me to swear on Holy Koran?’

  She decided it was enough. The truth. If only because, had this intransigent old man been down in Queen Street causing the death of his daughter, he would surely not, directly questioned, have denied it. An implacable belief in your own truth had its up-side as well as, possibly, its down.

  *

  So Froggy Froggott had to be told about the laser pen. On the face of it, there was almost no likelihood of there being any other person who would have wanted to kill Phillip Barstow’s sweet a girl as ever’s been. And, however tenuous the evidence, it was likely indeed that the girl had been deliberately killed. That the blinding beam from a laser pen had been directed into her eyes as she rode her bike beside the packed and dangerous traffic of rush-hour Queen Street, that she had been made to fall under the heavy wheels of that No 14 bus. What finally made that plain was that the laser pen, had she been merely victim of some yobbish horseplay, would never have been set down with evident deliberation pointing to the spot where she had been crushed to death.

  So, evidence of murder. And a murder, surely, paralleling the stabbing of PC Titmuss. Froggy Froggott had to be told.

  Harriet phoned from home. She did not want to risk the least possibility of any of her side of the conversation being casually overheard.

  ‘Mr Froggott?’

  ‘Who the hell’s this?’

  He damn well ought to know her voice by now. This was going to be every bit as difficult as she had expected.

  ‘It’s DCI Martens here, sir. There’s something I think you ought to know in connection with the Titmuss inquiry.’

  ‘What? Another little piece of thread that’s going to resolve the whole case in two minutes?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  A deep breath.

  ‘It’s this, sir. The PC who happened to be the first to get to the scene of WPC Syed’s death in Queen Street earlier this evening told me about something he’d noticed there that gave me grounds for suspecting her death was not as accidental as it appeared.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  He could not have conveyed scepticism more completely had he used every expression of doubt in the dictionary.

  ‘Sir, I feel it’s my duty to pass this information on to you.’

  ‘Well, pass it on then. And let me get back to putting my hands on the man who killed one of our own.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s this then. The constable observed, placed on the kerb at the precise scene of the accident, a laser pen. A laser pen he believed had been put there, on the kerb, with deliberate intent. So as to point directly at the victim. Now, sir, you’ll have heard, no doubt, what a laser pen can do if it’s shone into someone’s eyes. There’ve been cases where the victim has been hospitalized, though no lasting damage was—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know all that. No need to give me the bloody lecture.’

  ‘No, sir. But, sir, wouldn’t you agree that the presence of a laser pen there, together with WPC Syed falling off a bicycle, which she was accustomed to use every day to make her way back home, is significant?’

  A silence. A long silence.

  Can he really be accepting the notion? Even if it’s coming from a senior woman police officer? Froggy Froggott?

  ‘Miss Martens, that is the bloody stupidest idea I have ever heard in all my years of service.’

  *

  Some two hours later Harriet had the sour pleasure of hearing Froggy Froggott’s opinion of her theory repeated in public, if in a slightly less aggressive way. Just before going to bed she had switched her radio on to one of the local stations, as she generally did, to see if anything had happened in the city that she should know about.

  She found that Froggy was being interviewed. But, perhaps because he had very little to say concerning an investigation that seemed to have had nowhere to go from the very start, he suddenly contrived a heavy lurch of emphasis.

  ‘Well, all I can say is that I’m satisfied the attack on one of my constables was the work of some mindless drug-addict. And we’ll get him. Never you fear. You’ll have heard, I dare say, that in fact another police officer in the Greater Birchester Force died today. Fell off her bike into the path of a bus.’

  Crass sod.

  ‘Now, when two police officers die in such a coincidental manner, you’ll be bound sooner or later to get some happy idiots from the media start trying to make out there’s a sinister link there. Didn’t I hear somebody hinting at that on the radio earlier?’

  But the idea was, of course, too attractive for the interviewer not to pursue.

  ‘You mean to say, Superintendent, that this has been suggested? Despite what you’ve just said, are the police working on the theory that there may be a connection between these two events, the stabbing of Police Constable Titmuss and — we have an item coming up about this — the road accident that killed a woman police constable in Queen Street this evening? Is it being suggested the two deaths are somehow the work of one individual?’

  ‘Well, they’re not, let me tell you. Frankly, an idea like that couldn’t be more rubbish if it was fished out of a municipal waste-truck.’

  And with those words ringing in her ears Harriet took herself off to bed.

  Chapter Four

  What will I think of my theory tomorrow morning, Harriet asked herself. Because it is only a theory. And, on the face of it, an unlikely one. Someone unknown setting out to kill two police officers? Whatever reason could they have?

  She resolved to let a night’s sleep and the cold light of morning provide an answer. Then, as she had long trained herself to do, she cut out the troubles and complications of the day, forced herself limb by limb to relax and resolutely peered into the darkness of closed eyes looking for the first glimpses of dream shapes.

  But, flicking awake just after 6 a.m., she found, as she took a quick review of the day ahead, no change in her belief that Rukshana Syed’s death under the wheels of that last night’s rush-hour bus was no accident. It must be linked somehow to the equally sudden stabbing to death of her fellow Greater Birchester Police officer, PC Titmuss. No, nothing for it but to attempt once again to persuade Detective Superintendent Froggott, despite that vigorously uttered purely ridiculous on Greater Birchester Radio, that her theory was no stupid notion cooked up by an over-imaginative woman.

  In spite of her belief that what you did not want to do should be done at once, she delayed making her call until she had reached her office. Earlier than nine o’clock, she rationalized, she might be unlucky in getting hold of Froggy Froggott. She knew well enough, from his days in charge of B Division, that it was his boast that he was always at his desk before 7 a.m. You have to get up pretty bloody early to catch the worms while they’re still wriggling; it was one of his often repeated reprimands to any of his subordinates. But in fact, she knew, had he been kept up late during any major investigation, he was apt not to appear in the Incident Room much before nine, letting it be assumed h
e had been hard at work elsewhere.

  She was nevertheless surprised when at five minutes past nine, squaring her shoulders and looking down at the scratch-pad on which she had made careful and logical notes, she put through her call. Froggy had not yet come in.

  ‘I’ll ring again in half an hour or so,’ she told his secretary, and turned firmly to the regular tasks of her day.

  But it was only ten minutes later that her phone rang.

  ‘Miss Martens?’

  It was Froggy’s much-harassed secretary again. And sounding more than simply harassed.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Miss Martens, you were calling Detective Superintendent Froggott— Oh. Oh, Miss Martens, he’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? What do you mean dead? Has he had a heart attack or …? Or …?’

  Possible, a heart attack. Froggy never one not to sink another pint, eat a bag of chips on the hoof. Think of anything macho, Froggy had had a bash at it.

  ‘Oh, Miss Martens, it’s worse than that. It’s— It’s— He’s been murdered, Miss Martens.’

  Her voice now was an almost incoherent howl.

  ‘Pull yourself together.’

  This girl, the most recent in a long succession of young women who had found working for Froggy more than they could cope with — what was her name? Yes, Marjorie — had a noticeably silly side. Plus, long, out-jutting front teeth.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will. I’m sorry.’

  A heavy sniff down the line.

  ‘Right, now tell me just what is supposed to have happened.’

  ‘It— It’s like this, Miss Martens. Or that’s what Detective Inspector Coleman, who went out to the house, told me on the phone just now. Mr Froggott had left to come in here early — you know he always liked to be at his desk before anyone else — and then, when his wife didn’t hear the car start up, she eventually took a look out of the window to see if anything was the matter. And there he was. Beside the car. Just lying there.’

  ‘Did DI Coleman tell you anything more?’ Harriet snapped out the question as she heard the sobs of hysteria gathering once again.

  A gulp.

  ‘Well, yes. Yes, he did. Mrs Froggott called an ambulance but the paramedics reported him, Mr Froggott, Detective Super —’

  ‘Yes? They reported him dead?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, they did. Dead. And Mr Coleman said they had the sense to leave him just where he was till he got there. And he said— He said—’

  ‘Yes? Yes? What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Martens, that he’d been stabbed somehow in his mouth. He must have been crouching to look at one of his car tyres. The air had been let out of it, and— And then they must— Oh, Miss Martens, it’s worse.’

  ‘Then? Then? What else happened, for God’s sake?’

  ‘A tooth. One of Mr Froggott’s teeth had been ripped right out—’

  A wail of total incomprehension — natural perhaps in a woman with noticeably prominent teeth herself — and the line went dead.

  Harriet, slowly replacing her receiver, thought with sudden abrupt clarity of the conversation she had had outside her house the day before with ex-Sunday School pupil Rob Roberts. Of how he had reeled off for her the whole of the verse from — What was it? Yes, the Book of Exodus — Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth … Tooth for tooth. Could that be why whoever had killed Froggy Froggott had ripped out one of his big yellowed teeth? Surely it must be. Why else would Froggy’s killer have stopped after stabbing him to carry out that unnecessary bizarre act? An act that was an uncanny echo of WPC Syed’s death by laser pen, eye for eye? An act, surely, confirming beyond any doubt that Rukshana Syed had indeed been murdered? Because both killings must be the work of a mentally disturbed Bible-quoter of some wild sort. No other answer.

  And worse. Surely worse. Wasn’t he, this killer, a man who had for some reasonless reason been seized by a monstrous grudge against all police officers? Or perhaps only against all Greater Birchester Police officers.

  Her phone rang again.

  It took her a few seconds to realize what the sound of it was she had been so lost in plummeting thought. Then she picked up the receiver.

  ‘DCI Martens? The Chief Constable on the line for you.’

  ‘Sir Michael? Yes, sir?’

  ‘Miss Martens, you’ve heard, no doubt, about Mr Froggott?’

  ‘Just now, sir. From his secretary I’d rung to— On another matter, sir.’

  ‘And she had the details? Passed them on?’

  ‘I think so, sir. Most of them at least. He was stabbed, as I understand it, while he was stooping to examine a deflated tyre on his car? And …’

  ‘That tooth. You know about that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘An extraordinary thing. Some madman at work. But Mr Froggott’s the third of my officers to die, to be killed, within forty-eight hours. Last night there was— What was her name? The girl who went under a bus? Syed. Yes. WPC Syed. It must have been your Traffic Department that looked into her death, yes?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m up-to-date with the circumstances there. And — And, sir, even before Mr Froggott was killed I was already almost certain WPC Syed’s death was not the result of an accident. A laser pen was found at the scene, sir. The constable who saw it described it as looking as if it had been laid down on the kerb with its cap off pointing directly to the place where she had been crushed to death. I’m certain — even more so now — that she was deliberately blinded with its beam to make her fall off her cycle into the path of the traffic.’

  ‘Then, if you’re right, she was murdered. Do you see the same individual as responsible for all three deaths?’

  ‘It’s an almost inescapable conclusion, sir. To my mind. But there is another thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Syed was killed, I believe, because somebody shone that laser beam directly into her eye, or eyes. And the person who attacked Mr Froggott stayed at the scene long enough to rip out one of his teeth. That was how it was described to me, sir. Ripped out.’

  ‘Yes, DI Coleman reported as much to me. He said the tooth appeared to have been tugged out of Froggott’s mouth, using an instrument of some sort. A pair of carpenter’s pincers. Pliers, something like that.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I see that as especially significant. Sir, it may be the sheerest coincidence, but you’ll remember, perhaps, that passage in the Book of Exodus. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth …’

  ‘Are you telling me, Miss Martens, that this killer is working on those lines? A life for a life, that would be PC Titmuss stabbed in a way that’s unaccounted for so far. An eye for an eye, well, if you’re right about that laser pen it would seem … And now a tooth for a tooth. That’s plain enough. So have we got some total maniac to deal with?’

  ‘I’m afraid it all pretty well adds up, sir. And you know the rest of that quotation, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’

  ‘Good God, the Old Testament in all its ancient savagery.’

  ‘And its ruthless righteousness, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you’re right. And you’re saying that this— This fanatic is intending to mete out that sort of weird justice against other members of my Force?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it, sir. It’s certainly not something we can afford to ignore.’

  ‘No, you’re right. And that only confirms me in a decision I reached when I first heard about Mr Froggott. Miss Martens, I am putting you in charge now, not only of the inquiry into Mr Froggott’s death and those two others, but of what I see may very well develop into a major hunt to get to this maniac before he kills another police officer. I am relieving you of all other duties, not without some regret let me say. And I am granting you the acting rank of Detective Superintendent as from today.’

  *

  Then began the busiest and most demanding time of any in Harriet’s career. She went at once to the new-built A Division station looking o
ut over the calm lawns and lakes of Wellington Gardens with at the far end of them the imposing buildings of City Hall and the Main Post Office and, in the distance behind, the spire of the Cathedral. Very different from the turbulent, crime-ridden streets of B Division.

  Rapidly she absorbed the earliest reports on Froggy Froggott’s death. He had been stabbed, the pathologist stated, with a weapon, probably an ordinary kitchen knife, causing a wound that would have required no great force to inflict. Almost certainly then, she reflected, the same knife that had killed PC Titmuss.

  Next she arranged to hold a briefing in the big Incident Room which Froggy, splashily regardless of economies, had set up to run the investigation into the death of the lad warmly remembered for his supposed gift for sticking something in a woman, and it wouldn’t be cold steel. From its platform she took a long surveying glance at the relaxed team of detectives, looking back up at her with easy curiosity or evident scepticism, at the ranks of VDUs, the enormous whiteboards lining the walls, the banks of telephones.

  Then she went into action.

  ‘Right, sit up, all of you.’

  There were astonished looks. A stir of dismay. From one or two of the older men glares verging on rebellion. But no one spoke, and by the time she had given the room a second long survey no one, from the two detective inspectors she knew by sight to the scatter of fresh-faced young aides to CID, was doing anything but sitting bolt-upright.

  ‘All right. Now let me put you in the picture. By this time you all must know that Mr Froggott was killed at dawn this morning outside his house in Boreham. But what you don’t know is that another death besides that of PC Titmuss which you’ve been investigating, the death of WPC Syed, was not the simple rush-hour road accident it first appeared to be. It, almost without a doubt, was murder too.’

  Down on the floor quick looks flashed from face to face. The assembled detectives were not merely sitting up now but were leaning anxiously forward.

  ‘This is why,’ she went on, ‘the Chief has put one officer, myself, in charge of what he sees now as a triple investigation. But that is by no means all.’