Only the Lonely: DI Ted Darling Series Book 5

by L M Krier

  Winters looked at him, clearly surprised. If he'd expected to get his arse kicked, he'd misjudged Ted. He took the card and put it in his pocket, then, with a mumbled, 'Sir,' he turned and left the office in response to Ted's nod of dismissal.

  It was early afternoon before their latest victim's widow arrived at the station. Ted and Jezza went downstairs to talk to her, in an interview room which had been made available for the purpose. Ted introduced them both and extended his condolences before beginning.

  'Please, Inspector, or did you say Chief Inspector?' the woman asked, her English impeccable, but with a trace of an accent. 'Please don't waste your breath. Was Dickie's death something to do with his endless womanising? One jealous husband too many? Because I knew all about that, which is why I refuse to be a hypocrite and play the grieving widow.'

  It was sadly not the first time Ted had encountered such a reaction. The woman sitting opposite him was attractive, her skin toned and tanned, even in winter, glossy black hair, artfully tousled, reaching her shoulders. Even Ted, who took no interest in fashion or designer labels, could see that her clothes were high quality.

  Ted was monogamous by nature. He had never once cheated on Trev, nor had he ever been tempted to. He didn't like to judge, but at first glance, it was hard to understand why Hutchinson had been repeatedly cheating on such an attractive woman.

  'Mrs Hutchinson,' he began, trying to frame his questions carefully.

  'Please call me Nadia,' she invited. 'And I imagine one question you are going to need to ask me is my whereabouts on the night my husband – I suppose I will now need to get used to saying my late husband – was killed. Well, I was in Milano, with my daughter. She's studying fashion there. We have a small studio apartment there, as well as the house in Harrogate, for her use. It's where I'm from, originally. I was staying with her. So I have an alibi.'

  'You say you were aware that your husband was seeing other women …' he began again.

  'Dickie suffered from small penis syndrome,' she told him frankly. 'He wasn't very well endowed, so he had an irresistible urge to prove its ability as often as possible. I didn't bother divorcing him. It would have been too unsettling for Molly, while she was studying.'

  Jezza skilfully turned a stifled snort of laughter into a cough behind her hand at the woman's words.

  'Is your daughter your only child?' Ted asked, more to give himself recovery time than from any pressing need to know, except to check for possible suspects.

  'I have two sons. One is a tree surgeon, the other runs a gastropub in Yorkshire. I imagine you'll want to know their whereabouts, too, as they were also well aware of what their father was like. I'll happily give you their contact details. I doubt very much if either of them killed him, although I wouldn't have blamed them if they had.'

  'This morning must still have been distressing for you, Nadia. Were you able to identify your husband?'

  'They didn't allow me to see his face. They said his injuries were too horrific. But I was able to identify all his personal effects. He also had a tattoo on the inside of his left forearm. My name. He probably had it done so he would remember what it was. He was ridiculously proud of getting that tattoo. He had an extremely low pain threshold, he was nothing but a wuss.' Her accent made the word sound almost comical. 'He moaned and whimpered about it for days afterwards. It must have given him some awkward moments with his other women. He probably told them he was divorced. Or a widower.'

  'Were you aware of anyone in particular he was seeing?'

  'I'm sorry to sound totally heartless, Chief Inspector, but I honestly didn't care. I was long past that stage. I would like to think he didn't suffer too much. He was, after all, the father of my children. But I would be being untruthful if I said I felt any more for him than that. I only found out after we were married that he'd been seeing someone else at the time and had asked her to run away with him before our wedding.

  'I didn't need him, for anything. I have my own money. I certainly didn't need him for the indifferent sex. But the children have a certain fondness for him, which I don't discourage, so I lived with how things were.'

  After they'd taken details of her two sons and daughter, to check alibis, and escorted her out of the station, Ted turned to Jezza and asked, 'What did you make of that, then?'

  'Sorry for nearly losing it, boss. It just cracked me up, the way she said it. We certainly seem to be dealing with some low-life cheats in this case. If he had been off to a singles night or whatever at the pub, is it possible he might have run into our Linda Lovelace there, if that really is our killer?'

  'If any of these clowns here get their act together and ask the right questions, we might find something out. And Océane will no doubt have a lot more for us by the time we go back. In the meantime, I want you to check into alibis for the whole family, including finding independent alibis for both mother and daughter.

  'There's something else I think we should at least consider. If our victims were both serial womanisers, we need to look at any link, no matter how tenuous, between the families of both. There's just an outside chance that we're looking at a person hired to kill them, by someone in their own family.'

  Chapter Fifteen

  There were smug faces all round when Ted arrived on Foster's patch the following morning. He had Rob and Virgil with him again but had left Jezza behind. If they were held up for any reason, he wanted her to be ready to go hunting for Suki with Megan. Kevin Turner and Maurice were briefed and would be there to keep an eye on them, if Ted was not back.

  Ted looked round the room, wondering what was going on. He did notice that DC Winters was not looking quite as pleased with himself as the other team members were.

  'Has there been a development?'

  DI Foster was positively smirking. 'You could say that,' he said, milking the moment for all it was worth. 'We have a suspect in custody.'

  If his desire had been to shock Ted and his team members, he had succeeded. All three were left practically open-moutheded at the unexpected news.

  'Would you care to tell us a bit more?' Ted invited. 'I don't, for instance, see a suspect name on the board.'

  'We thought we'd wait for you to arrive to share the news,' Foster said gleefully. 'DS Mackenzie, DC Coombs and I picked him up last night, shortly after midnight. He claims to be a plumber, which fits with our enquiry. He's a Polack.'

  Ted hated the derogatory term, as he did any lack of respect.

  'I think you mean he's Polish, DI Foster,' he corrected, his tone warning. 'What's his connection to our victim?'

  'He had one of his business cards in his pocket when we picked him up. And he had marks on his face, as if he'd been involved in some sort of a ruck. There were traces of blood on the passenger door handle of Hutchinson's Subaru. We'll be checking it against our suspect's DNA but I'm betting they will match.'

  Ted was immediately suspicious. It all sounded so convenient. Too much so. He needed to know more, but he didn't like the sound of what he had heard so far.

  'So how did you come across him?'

  'Terry, Jock and me went out for a few bevvies together last night after work,' Foster continued, indicating DC Coombs and DS Mackenzie. It made Ted even more suspicious, to know that there was seemingly a close social link between the three men. 'When we were walking home, we noticed a van in a pub car park, and a man acting suspiciously. The van had a sign on it. Pawel the Plumber. We stopped to have a word with him. He got twitchy and tried to run off, so we arrested him and brought him in for questioning. We haven't started yet, though. Thought you might like the privilege.'

  'Have his prints been checked against any on the business card?' Ted asked suspiciously.

  'Getting that sorted now, along with DNA against the blood on the car,' Coombs said proudly. The three of them looked well pleased with themselves.

  'Did you at least ask him for his movements on the night in question?'

  'He's living rough out of his van, parking it up any
where he doesn't get moved on. No fixed address, doing jobbing plumbing. He just has a mobile number for contact,' Foster told him. 'He claims to spend his evenings in his van, doesn't go out much. No alibi for the time of either murder.'

  'Right,' Ted said decisively, recovering from his initial surprise, but still sceptical. 'DS O'Connell and I will go and start interviewing him. The rest of you, we need to establish his movements and any connection between him and either victim. Also find out from the hotel here, and the one in Stockport, if they've ever used a plumber called … what's his full name?'

  'Bosko. Pawel Bosko.'

  'What do you make of it, Rob?' Ted asked, as the two of them made their way down to the interview room where Bosko was going to be waiting for them.

  'It has fall guy written all over it for me, boss,' Rob told him, knowing he could always speak frankly in front of Ted. 'You've got no fixed address, you've just killed someone, possibly your second victim, you have a van. Why would you still be hanging around the same area? Especially in a van with plumber written on it, when you've used being a plumber as your way to get into a room, and you don't know if anyone heard you or not?'

  'Let's not jump the gun until we've spoken to him, but you've pretty much summed up everything that's gone through my head about the arrest.'

  The man who was waiting for them looked afraid. He made to rise as the two men came into the room, clearly uncertain. A constable in uniform was waiting just inside the door. The suspect was in coveralls. His own clothes had clearly been taken for testing. His face looked bruised and bloody.

  'Please sit down, Mr Bosko,' Ted told him, introducing himself and Rob for the tape, which he immediately set running. He wanted this one by the book from the start. He was already uncomfortable about it. 'Has anyone offered you medical attention for the injuries to your face?'

  The man raised a hand self-consciously to the inflamed area. 'Is fine. Is nothing.'

  Ted turned to the constable, who was just preparing to leave. 'Has Mr Bosko been offered any refreshment, do you know, Constable? He's already been here some time. Has he had the necessary care?'

  If the constable was surprised by Ted's concern and his polite tone, he covered it well. 'I'm afraid I don't know for sure, sir, but not that I'm aware of.'

  'Perhaps you could at least bring him a drink, please? Mr Bosko, would you like something to drink? Some coffee, perhaps? Or water?'

  The suspect was looking equally surprised. He spoke hesitantly. 'Coffee. Yes, please. Coffee, black, no sugar.'

  Ted thanked the officer and sent him on his way to find the drink. Then he settled himself down for the job, looking levelly at the man opposite him.

  Ted's secret weapon, and a large part of his success rate, was his interview technique. Because he was small and seemed insignificant, people were seldom wary of him. His tone was always calm, quiet and polite. People would often tell him far more than they intended to, their guard lowered when they saw no immediate threat in his manner. Although seemingly innocuous, he was tenacious. He took his time, hardly ever lost his temper, but with his relentless patience, he inevitably got far more from a suspect than anyone who went in shouting the odds.

  'Just for the tape, Mr Bosko, can you please confirm your name and address?'

  'Pawel Bosko. I don't have address yet. My friend said come to Manchester. Lot of people want good plumber. I am good plumber. It is true, I find work, but not yet enough money to have house or flat.'

  Gently, methodically, Ted took him through a succession of bland questions, ones to which he would have no reason to lie. He allowed him pauses to drink the coffee which had been brought for him. Ted was watching carefully to see his body language when he was likely to be telling the truth. That way he could identify subtle changes – a twitch of a muscle here, a rapid eye movement there – which would give him a sign for when the man was lying.

  'Do you know why you're here, Mr Bosko?' he asked.

  'Those other police, they asked me did I kill man. I didn't kill anyone. I am not morderca. Not murderer.'

  His face was suddenly closed down, wary, but Ted didn't detect any difference in the way he stated it. Although he was no gambler, Ted would have put money on the fact that he was still telling the truth. But he would need a lot more than his intuition to decide whether the man was innocent or guilty.

  'Tell me about last night,' he said, his tone inviting confidence. 'What happened when the police officers arrested you?'

  'I did some repairs at pub yesterday. They had big problem with toilets. No water. Big problem, for pub. I put my card in many places, in many pubs. They call me, I go there. Repair toilets. Good job. The boss very happy, said I could park in his car park for night and sleep in my van. I told him I have no home yet. He gave me good food, too. Very happy with job I did.

  'I getting ready to sleep, and I hear people outside my van. I look out. Three men looking all round my van, checking things, kicking tyres. I did not know they were police, so I was anxious. I get out to speak to them.'

  To break his train of thought and watch for any other signs of a change of delivery, Ted interrupted him to ask, 'Do you know a Richard Hutchinson, Mr Bosko?'

  The man shook his head emphatically. 'I never heard this name. Those other police, they ask me same thing. I told them, no, I don't know this name.'

  Ted was still not seeing any change in the man's features or body language. Either he was telling the truth or he could well abandon plumbing as a profession and take up acting instead.

  'So can you tell me how one of his business cards came to be in your pocket, Mr Bosko?'

  'No, sir, I can't tell you,' his voice was starting to sound shrill, going up in pitch, with an edge of panic. 'I don't know. I don't know this name, I don't know who this man is. I don't know why card was in my pocket. I never seen it before.'

  Ted turned and looked at Rob, sitting quietly by his side. They exchanged a glance and Ted could tell that Rob was of the same opinion as he was himself. If the man was lying, he was doing it extremely convincingly.

  'All right, Mr Bosko, try to keep calm. Now, can you tell me about the injuries to your face? What happened there? Had you been in a fight with someone?'

  Bosko drained the rest of his coffee to steady himself before he replied. 'No fight, no. I'm not fighter. I'm just plumber. Good plumber, trying to start up business. When I got out of my van, policemen start asking me lot of questions. I was very afraid. They were aggressive. I thought I did something wrong. I thought perhaps it was not allowed to live in van, even when pub owner said I could park there.

  'I told them I would go. Move van, find somewhere else to park, if I was doing something wrong. I turned to get back in van but they pull me back, then push me against side of van, hard. I was afraid. I thought I was in serious trouble. I tried to get away. One of them hit me, in my face.'

  'Which one hit you, Mr Bosko?'

  'Tall policeman, more hair than two others.'

  DC Coombs. Ted would have bet on him being the violent one.

  'What happened next? Tell me everything you can remember,' he said, his tone still calm and quiet.

  'He tell me not to resist arrest and he hit me again. There was blood from my nose. He had on rubber gloves. He wipe my face with his gloves. Then another one, older one, not much hair, put his hand in my pocket, takes out a card and gives it to me to hold. He ask me if I know this man, name on card, but I told him no, I don't know him. Tall one hit me again. Then he says I am being arrested for murder.'

  The man's expression never changed. His direct gaze didn't waver from Ted's face, not even to look at Rob, still sitting silent beside him. 'I do not know this man. I killed no one.'

  Ted believed him. He really thought he was telling the truth. He saw nothing to make him think otherwise. He could see now exactly how Bosko's blood was going to be identified on the victim's car, and how his fingerprints would be found on the business card. Foster had collected up the cards in the hotel bed
room. If he hadn't logged them all in, it would have given him a handy spare one to plant in the pocket of the first patsy they found. The three of them must have thought all their birthdays had come round at once when the first stooge they happened on was genuinely a plumber.

  'What size shoes do you take, Mr Bosko?' Ted asked, wondering if the sudden change of direction of the questions would show up a chink in his armour, if the man was lying. The question clearly surprised him, but it didn't throw him. There was no flicker of recognition for why the information might be relevant.

  'Size forty-five,' he replied. It was a full size larger than the boot-marks on the first victim, and the size had been confirmed again by the post-mortem the previous afternoon on Richard Hutchinson. Bosko's own shoes and clothes would be test, but Ted was fairly sure that his shoes would not be a match. The whole thing reeked of a stitch-up, but one it could be tricky to prove.

  'Have you ever been to Stockport, Mr Bosko?'

  He looked genuinely puzzled. 'Stockport? No, sir, I have not been. I just stay round here, so people get to know me. I know no one in Stockport.'

  'How long have you been in the area?'

  'Only a few months. I don't yet know area well. I don't have time for visiting much, with trying to start up business. Sir, I swear to you, I did not kill this man. I have never killed anyone. Never even hurt anyone. I am just peaceful plumber.'

  'Well, if he's lying, boss, he should win an Oscar for it. He has me convinced. And it's easy to see how he's been set up. But to what purpose?'

  'You know I don't pre-judge, but what I think we are looking at here is lazy, bent coppers who just want results, at any price. I'm going to need to call a conference with the DSU now, see if he thinks we have enough to approach the CPS about charging Bosko. I'm taking it as a given that the bloods and fingerprints are going to come back as a match, and I think we both know how.'

  Ted, as SIO, was in charge of the case on the ground. But Jim Baker was heading up the new unit, so final responsibility lay with him. Ted put a call through to him and arranged a time as soon as possible when the two of them could sit down together to discuss progress, before talking to the rest of the team. Once again they squeezed themselves into Foster's office, sending him out to the main office to do some paperwork.