by Simon Hall
‘Yes,’ he heard himself say.
‘Go on then, get moving. What are you waiting for?’
Dan had grabbed Nigel and together they’d driven to find Adam standing at the edge of the field. The area had been cordoned off, a bored constable patrolling back and forth, more to keep warm than for any purpose of maintaining the security of the site. A couple of Scenes of Crime officers, all clad in their white overalls, were on their hands and knees, leaning into the ditch. The sky was grey with a fine and drifting rain and a wakening wind blew at a line of trees.
Nigel hooked the camera onto the tripod and started filming. Adam took off his overcoat to reveal a smart black suit, drew himself up to his full height and adjusted his tie to make sure it was impeccably straight. He looked on at the SOCOs in magnificent, studied silence, with the air of a vengeful Angel of Justice whose moment had finally come.
Such was the act, Dan was tempted to shout “cut” when they’d finished filming.
Nigel took a couple more shots of the area, to provide some context, then Dan sidled up and whispered to Adam, ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Get the thing out and get it analysed. It’d normally take days, but with the less than subtle help of the High Honchos’ clout it’s going to be done straight away.’
‘And in terms of the media?’
‘By which you mean you?’
‘Yes.’
Adam pulled Dan away from the site. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘We’ve got to be a little careful. I can’t even say for sure it is the gun that killed Bray.’
‘I know that, but realistically? In a field this close to the murder scene? And so near to the office of the prime suspect?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Film the SOCOs doing their bit, then the gun when it’s brought out and put in on the lunchtime news.’
‘I don’t know. It may be a bit premature …’
‘It’ll be great for public reassurance. It’ll show you’re making progress with the case. And I can put an appeal for witnesses into the story, in case someone saw the gun being dumped.’ Dan paused, then added, ‘We’ll have to interview you, of course. And once we’ve put it out – as a little exclusive, naturally – everyone else will pick it up and the story will be splashed everywhere. Along with your picture and quotes.’
Adam began nodding. ‘Well, if you put it like that then, I suppose it’s OK.’
Dan thought it was one of the poorer shows of reluctance that he’d seen.
In many detective dramas Scenes of Crime Officers are lauded as modern-day miracle workers, blessed with a nigh supernatural ability to find the elusive piece of killer evidence that solves a case. That may well be true, Dan thought, but there is a drawback to SOCs that the writers don’t feature. They work slowly and, like bus drivers, council workmen, or civil servants, they cannot be rushed.
Dan chafed. It was half past eleven, he was wet through, very cold, and still the shotgun hadn’t been removed from the ditch. There were only two hours until the lunchtime news was on air, he’d already suffered half a dozen calls from Lizzie, demanding progress reports, and he still didn’t have the golden shot, the one that told the story in a second.
It would be the headline which would run around the country, a white overalled officer carefully lifting the murder weapon from its watery hiding place.
Adam had explained the need for patience. The SOCOs had to work their way around the gun, to make sure they found any evidence that may have been left. And when it came to the weapon itself they had to proceed painstakingly slowly, so as not to lose any fibres, hairs or flecks of skin, that vital evidence which might give away the identity of the person who last handled it.
The person who, in all probability, murdered Edward Bray.
They were closing in on their killer.
But it was taking time.
The stoic Nigel stood beside his camera, hood pulled tight over his head, ready for the moment the gun would appear. El was beside him, camera tight to his eye. Dan had pointed out to Adam that for maximum coverage all the newspapers and websites would need a high quality photograph as soon as possible, and he had a simple way to ensure one was available.
Adam chewed briefly at his lip, then nodded his assent and Dan had duly summoned the paparazzo. The promised reward was a bottle of the finest malt whisky to help their Christmas Day pass jovially.
The bonus prize was the look on Adam’s face as the chubby bumbling man with the bodywarmer and wild hair panted his way up to the scene, and launched one of his dreadful assaults on the world of verse.
“As a way to get the boot,
It’s surely no great hoot,
Certainly not much fun,
Being shot with a gun,
But to El it means lots and lots of loot!”
No one could find any words to reply. Dan noticed that for the remainder of the time the photographer lurked around the scene Adam kept a watchful eye upon, and wary distance from, him.
It was probably a fifteen-minute drive back to the studios from here, maybe twenty, depending on the traffic. It would take at least half an hour to edit the report, perhaps a little more. So that meant, realistically, they had until half past twelve. Adam had been interviewed and said all the right things, although it had taken him a couple of efforts to get the words precise enough for his exacting standards.
All they needed now was the shot of the gun. And the two SOCOs were still on their hands and knees, bending over the ditch.
The weather was closing around them, a shroud of grey, the rain coming in harder, a gentle beat on the surrounding leaves. The odd car swished past, but the road was pleasantly quiet.
One of the white overalled figures stood up. Nigel and El both leaned forwards.
The man stretched his arms, rolled his neck, then knelt back down again. Dan swore, prompting a reproachful look from Nigel. The SOCOs resumed their work.
A distant clock rang noon. Dan checked his beautiful new watch, which he’d now given up trying to get other people to notice. Still no one had. It said ten to twelve.
‘What time do you make it?’ he asked Nigel and El. Both had modern digital watches, plastic and cheap, but the kind that boast an accuracy of within a second a year. Both said noon.
Dan gave his flashy and expensive chronometer a thoughtful stare.
A couple of crows landed in the fieldand pecked at the furrows of mud. It looked a halfhearted gesture. Even the moods of nature can be shaped by the might of the weather.
The SOCO was standing up again, but this time slowly. And now he was bending over, reaching out. From down in the ditch his colleague’s hand rose, and it was gripping a plastic bag. Slowly, very carefully, almost reverentially, the man took it, held it for a few seconds, as if to be absolutely sure it was real, then turned and walked directly towards the cameras.
Just as Adam had asked him to.
The picture was pure drama.
With each step the SOCO took, the contents of the clear plastic bag became ever more apparent.
It was dripping with water, wrapped with tendrils of weed and plant, coated with patches of dark and slimy mud and the odd long-dead and decomposing leaf.
But it was unmistakably a double-barrelled shotgun.
The report was a pleasure to write. It had natural suspense, and was just a case of letting the pictures tell the story, but adding a few words of embroidery to make clear what was going on.
First, a little build-up to heighten the tension.
‘The police were called to the corner of a field, near to the lay-by where Edward Bray was murdered, after a tip-off,’ Dan wrote, while Jenny lay down pictures of the SOCOs working at the ditch.
‘Specialist Scenes of Crime officers carried out an extensive and careful search. Their objective – to preserve any evidence that may have been left here by the killer. For several hours, they worked through the ditch.’
Jenny added the shot of Adam looking on, the concentratio
n intent in his eyes.
Now it was time to deliver the punchline.
‘Then, just after noon on the day before Christmas Eve, and ten days since the murder – the police hunting for the killer of Edward Bray had their breakthrough.’
And now Dan again used that most powerful of weapons in a TV reporter’s armoury– silence. Jenny laid down the picture of the SOCOs fiddling around, and then walking towards the camera with the gun.
Some sights needed no explanation.
Next it was a clip of Adam, being upbeat and positive, but still lacing his words with a warning.
‘This is certainly a very significant development and could well be our breakthrough. It might just give us the vital clue that leads us to whoever carried out the murder. But first, we’ve got lots of forensics work to do, to see what the gun can tell us.’
To end the story, Dan did a piece to camera. He asked anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area where the gun was found on the evening that Bray was killed to get in touch with the police. It was a long shot, but worth a try. The report might just prompt a dusty memory.
The story was the lead on the lunchtime news, tagged as an exclusive. Another exclusive, Dan was tempted to add, as Lizzie was sitting within earshot. When the bulletin had finished, she pronounced the scoop “pretty reasonable”, but set off for the canteen wearing a rare smile. When she’d left the newsroom, a couple of other journalists voiced their relief and even thanked Dan for making their lives more comfortable by taming the ogre with the rich fare of an exclusive. Lizzie had been in a venomous mood all morning.
Adam rang just after the broadcast. The police had been deluged with calls from other journalists, checking the details of the story. It would soon be running everywhere. The labs were working on the shotgun now and promised to have some preliminary results by later this afternoon.
It is part of a scientist’s training to be loath to draw any conclusions until an experiment had been performed and re-performed and re-re-performed to the extremes of repetition. But in this case, the technicians were already confident the gun had been found in time to give the police some highly significant clues as to who had killed Edward Bray.
Chapter Twenty
THE ARREST WAS PRECISELY timed.
Dan sat in the back of the CID car, behind Adam and Suzanne and kept quiet. It wasn’t easy. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, and he wasn’t even sure he should be here.
‘This feels – I don’t know, a bit odd,’ he’d said to Adam as they were about to leave Charles Cross.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, this is the real thing, isn’t it? This is about as serious as it gets. An arrest on suspicion of murder. The first one in the case. And I’m only a hack, and …’
‘You wanted to know about police work,’ the detective interrupted. ‘This is it, the real thing, as you so eloquently put it. You’re part of the investigation, so you can see it through. We’re almost there now.’
And Dan, despite himself, couldn’t help shivering.
Adam had called just after four o’clock. The results from the labs were through. And they were damning. He explained what the scientists had found, and what it meant.
In around an hour’s time, the police would be making an arrest. This was not for filming, or broadcast, Adam made that very clear, but if Dan wanted to come along …
Dan gulped hard and managed to find the breath to say yes.
He went to find Lizzieand tried to be as nonchalant as possible, but those laser eyes had a penetrating power. There were, he lied, no developments in the story yet, so he hoped a similar version of the lunchtime report would suffice for tonight. If that were the case, he’d like to go to meet some of the detectives just to check nothing else was happening.
Dan laced his request with vague hopes of finding a follow up story for tomorrow, another exclusive, naturally. Lizzie’s mood had remained favourable, so the regal permission was loftily granted.
Dan left hastily, before she could start asking questions.
He had to concentrate hard on the drive down to the police station. The case was spinning in his mind. What the scientists had found, even if it wasn’t conclusive, pointed clearly to the guilt of one particular suspect. But how could that be, given the person’s alibi?
A pedestrian crossing turned red and he had to stamp on the brakes to stop the car, such was his preoccupation. Dan swore to himself and forced his mind back on to the drive.
All would soon become clear.
At Charles Cross, he’d found Adam in a buoyant mood. ‘It looks like the High Honchos might get their wish and see the case cleared up by tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Then we can all have a Happy Christmas – apart from our newly exposed murderer, of course. He gets to rot in the cells while we all eat turkey.’
They chatted a little more about the scientists’ findings, then Adam said, ‘Yep, you’re right, we’re going to have to demolish the alibi, but I reckon that’s not beyond us. In fact, I’m hoping for a quick confession and an early resolution. We might even be able to celebrate with a couple of beers tonight, if you’re up for that. I always like to toast the successful end of a case. Are you ready to go?’
Dan had grabbed his satchel and followed Adam and Suzanne down the stairs.
‘I always like to make the arrest in a big case,’ Adam said, as they walked. ‘Some of the other chief inspectors steer clear of this bit. They think it’s a little tawdry and leave it to the troops. But I reckon it’s a senior officer’s prerogative.’
Suzanne had driven them, as methodically and carefully as she carried out her investigations. She didn’t once exceed the speed limit and fed the steering wheel through her hands in a way that would make a driving instructor nod with pleasure. They were at their destination by a quarter to five, and there, just around the corner and out of sight, they parked and waited.
‘We just need to get the call to say we’re good to go,’ Adam said. ‘That should come through in the next few minutes.’
A couple of sizeable, uniformed constables were waiting around the back, just in case their suspect should make a run for it. All was in place for the arrest.
The next few minutes passed more slowly than any Dan could remember. He tried to distract himself with thoughts of Christmas. Rutherford and his smiling face as he smelt the turkey roasting in the oven. El, his malt whisky and whether there was any way to get a snap of the scoutmaster, and Kerry, and what she would make of her present.
He even wondered what Claire, the dark haired detective, was doing over the holiday time. Whether she was celebrating with a boyfriend. Or if she could perhaps be single.
None of these thoughts had any chance of taking hold. All Dan could think of was the man, at work in the office around the corner, oblivious to what was about to unfold, and how he could possibly have murdered Edward Bray.
Adam eased his seat backwardsand stretched out. He was as relaxed as a holidaymaker who’d journeyed for hours to finally reach the promised beach, complete with comfortable lounger and cold lager. Suzanne worked through her notes.
Cars and vans drove past, even the odd cyclist, despite the weather. The rain continued to pound down, drumming relentlessly on the roof. It was dark in the car, only a distant streetlight casting a faint amber glow.
Dan took out his mobile, fiddled and fussed, changed the screensaver, then decided he preferred the original version and changed it back again.
Slowly, the clock turned around to five.
Adam’s mobile rang. He listened, then hung up and said, ‘Right, that’s it. Julia Francis has gone home. He won’t be able to call her now. He’s all ours. So let’s go.’
They pulled on their coats, dodged the growing puddles, jogged around the corner and up to the door. Adam took the lead, then Suzanne, Dan hanging back a little.
The man standing by the filing cabinet turned, a professional smile ready for the newcomers. It faded fast when he saw Adam, and
the expression on the detective’s face.
And it died entirely at the words, ‘Gordon Clarke, I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Edward Bray.’
The scientists had not found the Holy Grail of detective work, no flakes of skin, hairs or fingerprints on the gun which would give them an instant means of identification of the killer. They concluded whoever had brandished it had worn gloves, as they had expected, but also probably some kind of coat, or overall, with a hood, tightly drawn around his or her head, and perhaps even a hair net. It was an increasingly common technique amongst the more intelligent criminals, and further evidence the killing had been thoroughly researched and planned.
But what they had found were some minute fibres, near invisible to the human eye, stuck in a crack between the stock and barrels of the shotgun. The conclusion was that the weapon had probably been placed on, or into a piece of plastic sheeting, and put in the boot of a car after the murder. But the movement of the vehicle on that journey to the edge of a farmer’s field had shaken it loose.
The killer was, unsurprisingly, in a hurry to leave the lay-by and thus had done a poor job of wrapping or securing the gun, so the theory went. He probably drove quickly, cornering at speed, and the weapon had slid around in the boot.
During that process the tiny but telltale fibres had become attached.
The scientists’ view was that whoever had then taken the gun from the boot had realised the potential danger and made another hasty attempt to sanitise it. But once more he was in a hurry, fearful of being seen. It was dark and wet, and the fibres were so very small. He had not been thorough enough.
That was the investigation’s golden break, the beam of sunshine of progress through the bank of dark cloud.
The thin black curls of material, no more than mere shavings, had been isolated, analysed, and the information fed into a database. Then, it was just a question of waiting, only a short period, but one which felt very long indeed.
The wait had been worthwhile. The results came back within half an hour and they were definitive.
