Broken Angel

by Diane M Dickson

  Chapter 37

  Inside the front door of George Simpson’s flat was a short, narrow hallway. They had pulled on blue gloves before they entered – routine nowadays.

  There were a couple of photographs on the wall. One was an old studio portrait of a woman in dark clothes and a hat, stiff and self-conscious, the other was a young woman holding a baby. There was a row of hooks with two jackets and an umbrella hanging on them. The first door on the right led to a small square kitchen with fitted cupboards, a cooker, a fridge and a small table and chair under the window on the side of the building. It was clean; there was a mug beside the sink, but no other sign of occupation. They could see rows of houses and, in the distance, small hills, trees and fields. It was neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant. It was bland.

  The lounge was at the end of the hall, small and unremarkable. There was a religious painting on the wall. Tanya glanced at it. There was a three-piece suite in brown leather, a coffee table, and a desk in the corner with his computer and a bookshelf above it.

  Charlie had gone the other way, into the room opposite the kitchen, and Tanya heard him stepping back along the fake wooden floor. She turned. He stood in the doorway, speechless for just a minute, he swallowed. “I wouldn’t move anything. I’ve found him.”

  * * *

  They went back outside, careful not to touch anything on the way, sat at the top of the stairs and made calls. It didn’t take very long to set things in motion, there was no need for an ambulance or any sort of attempt at resuscitation. It was obvious that he was dead, no room for doubt. Tanya had gone back to stand at the bedroom door, to have a look around before the scene was handed over. There were empty pill packets on the bedside table; they didn’t pick them up, it didn’t matter to them what it was he had used, and for the moment things must be left as they were. He had vomited. It had spoiled the scene he had tried to create, wearing his suit with what she later discovered was called an alb, over the top. His religious garb. But he had not lain still and drifted peacefully away, his body had objected, his stomach revolted, and the result was sad and sordid. His eyes were wide and staring and devoid of light. He was gone.

  While they waited for the medical examiner, the mortuary van, the SOCO team, there wasn’t much they could say. Tanya’s mind was whirling but none of it would settle. Uppermost was the idea that he could be their only link to the person who had killed twice, and abducted Jane. She went through what she could remember of their interviews with him, his difficult attitude. Had he been hiding a terrible crime, had he known what was happening? She hadn’t thought so at the time, now she doubted her judgement. It would hardly show her in the best light if she’d been with him and had no inkling that he was any more than just a rather unpleasant character. She knew that often it was almost all instinct that pointed the way and if she didn’t have that, she would never be among the best.

  She went over the timeline in her head. She needed to get back and use the computer. He couldn’t have been taking women from the services, he was well known to everyone who worked there – surely someone would have said something. Okay, the second woman had gone from a different one but Jane, she had been in the same place as Sarah. No, it wasn’t possible. It was conceivable that he knew something about it all and it was possible that guilt had driven him to do what he had done. She couldn’t have missed this.

  “Did you see a note, Charlie?”

  “Not from where I was. I didn’t move anything to be honest. I could see there was nothing to be done and I didn’t want to screw anything up. There was nothing on the dressing table, I know that for sure. There was a sort of wooden cross and that was it. The bedside table had a clock.” He closed his eyes. “A book, I think it was a bible. I don’t know if there was anything on the bed, I touched him briefly, and he was so cold, stiff, I knew he was dead, so I left him. We’ll just have to wait.”

  “But he might have said something, in a note – something about Jane.” She stood, sudden and urgent, stepped into the hallway and shouted to the technicians whom they could hear carefully and methodically cataloguing the contents and state of his room. Charlie had followed her in. “Don’t close the bible. Hello, hey!”

  A technician popped her head out of the bedroom. As she walked a little way down the hallway her bootees made soft noises on the fake wood, her trouser legs rubbed together rasping with every step. She didn’t come out of the flat. “What?”

  “There’s a bible, on the bedside table. It’s open.”

  “Oh yeah, I saw that.”

  “Don’t close it, before you bag it up. I need to know what page it’s open at.” She turned to Charlie, “I need a suit.”

  Parked on the concrete apron was a van with a box of protective suits in the back, she grabbed one, stepped back into the hallway and pulled it on over her clothes.

  The bible was as Charlie had seen it. She bent close to peer at the tiny writing. There was a piece of paper used as a book mark laid across the page. She had the technicians take pictures, they were defensive. “We would have done it as a matter of course. It’s what we do.” With a huff the woman turned away. She could tell that they thought she was overreacting to a suicide but wasn’t going to spend time explaining herself. She reached out with a gloved hand and moved the bookmark. After unfolding it, she read out the short inscription. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t face the shame’.

  “‘Exodus?’ What’s that Charlie? What’s it about?”

  “About the flight from Egypt.”

  “Okay. And does that say anything about committing suicide? I know for some religions it’s a big no, no.”

  He leaned closer. “I can only remember bits, I just go to church for the singing you know, the social stuff. Granny would know probably but let’s see. What chapter is it? Right. He tapped into his phone.”

  “We’re ready to move the body now. Is there any reason why we can’t?” a SOCO said.

  Tanya held up a hand. “Just give me another minute. Anything Charlie?”

  He showed her his phone, “The Ten Commandments.”

  “Right. Right, so that’s about coveting goats and stuff, isn’t it? What’s the first one?”

  “I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” This came from a technician who was standing beside the door to the bathroom. “I studied them as part of my degree. It’s difficult to see the relevance of a lot of it today, but basically it’s just rules for decent behaviour I reckon.”

  Tanya screwed up her face, “Well that’s not much help, I don’t think. What else is there?”

  He spoke again, happy to have a chance to show off a bit, “I think the one that most people think of as the most important is ‘thou shalt not kill’. That’s the one that gets quoted all the time.”

  She felt Charlie tense beside her.

  “Look, I know it looks like a suicide, but it could be connected to something else. If you find any other note let me know immediately, okay? And I need an address book. I need to find this man’s friends pretty bloody quickly.”

  She saw the raised eyebrows, heard a huff of irritation – she’d annoyed them.

  The woman SOCO spoke, “It could be there’s something under the body, though I would be surprised. There’s nothing in the bedroom, kitchen or living room that is obvious. It really does look as though he topped himself. Anyway, we’ll just do our work, you know the way that we do? If we find an address book we’ll let you know but these days that sort of thing’s going to be on a computer isn’t it, it’s not the dark ages.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your jobs, truly, it’s just that I’ve got a young woman missing. He could be involved; his mate almost certainly is. There is the chance that this might be murder, poison has been used before. I expect you could be right and he did this himself, taking into account the note and the bible, the empty pill packets, but I really, really need to know why and I need to know who he’s been mixing with.”

  “R
ight.”

  Tanya was annoyed with herself, she needed to learn how not to wind people up. It had followed her through life, always in school getting on the wrong side of teachers, at the training college where she knew people called her a big head; antisocial. She was so used to having to hold her own, so used to fighting against being seen as the extra one, her sister the apple of her parents’ eyes, the winner of all the prizes. It had made her forceful, it had been that or become a shadow, a follower, and she knew people saw her as prickly. Charlie had siblings, a crowd of them, but it had made him a team player, naturally sympathetic, a good reader of people. She had tried hard since she’d come back but she knew she had a tendency to come across as bossy, and you only got away with it when you were right, people were not as quick to be understanding when you screwed up, they liked to see you fail.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs opened. “Charlie? Oh sorry. Inspector Miller.” It was another person anonymised by the suit, hat, gloves. “We’re in the garage. You probably want to see this.” She grabbed the banister and ran down the stairs, “Come on Charlie, let’s see if this’ll tell us what the hell is going on here.”

  Chapter 38

  It was cold in the garage; no sun could get in. Maybe in the middle of the summer with the door open but now, September, it was chilly. They had put a screen around the doorway. The road outside was busy with teens on bikes and boards, a couple of women stood hugging their jackets around themselves. Mrs Singh sat in the entrance to her flat; a little group of neighbours clustered together on the parking slab.

  The work surface they had seen from their restricted view at the window was an old desk, it looked like something that had been used in an office at some time.

  The boxes on the wall shelves were all similar, some white, some brown, all with labels on them. There were far more than had appeared from the outside, several hundred stacked neatly. On the desk were labels, lists, parcel tape, and a pair of scissors. Tanya shook her head, raised her eyebrows at the man who had brought them here.

  “Well it’s like a shipping office isn’t it?” he said, as if it was obvious to anyone.

  “How do you mean?”

  In response he pulled open the flaps on the top of the nearest box. “Coffee in this one.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yeah, there’s biscuits.” He waved a hand towards the rear of the unit. “Tea bags, sugar, sauces in little tubes.”

  “Well, I don’t understand. What, did he bulk buy?”

  He gave a little laugh. “No, we didn’t get it either, not until we started cataloguing the stuff. Look at the labels.”

  “I’m not into doing a quiz, can you just tell me what the hell this is all about?” She’d done it again, she tried a small laugh but it was too late.

  He was taken aback by the snap in her voice, he had been amused by it all, until now, until he caught the atmosphere. She nodded, gave him a chance to carry on. “Well, okay. The labels on the boxes over there are all to the company who run the service area, not the big outlets, but the general place, the toilets and public spaces if you like. The drinks, the biscuits and so on are labelled for the motel. But those,” he pointed to the shelves next to the desk, “those are all addressed to other places, same boxes, different labels. If you take a look at the book it’s all pretty clear. Somebody has been nicking stuff from the services and running a nice little business selling it on.”

  Charlie’s voice was muffled by the mask he was wearing but he nodded as he spoke, “Thou shalt not steal. That’s the other well-known one isn’t it? It wasn’t about killing, the note, it was about bloody stealing stuff from work.”

  Tanya was shuffling papers on the desk, searching desperately for something with Peter’s name on. “Is there a contacts list on this computer?”

  “There’s an order book there.”

  “No, not that, I don’t know, a sort of staff list or something. Notes to a delivery driver?”

  “Nothing I’ve seen but it’s not really my job. We’ll be taking the electronics away, giving it to the IT department.”

  “Look can we get this examined ASAP? I’m looking for reference to either a friend, or a colleague or, god I don’t know. Anyway, somebody called Peter.”

  “Peter, oh right then, that’ll be easy.” With a grimace, the SOCO officer blew out a breath. “I’ll see what I can do, we’re short of people but I’ll do my best.”

  “It’s really urgent.” Tanya pulled out her phone, opened the email to show him the artist’s impression. “I have to find this bloke. I think he’s abducted a young girl, if we don’t get to her quickly, she’s dead.”

  “We’ll do what we can. Ping me your number, I’ll ring you straight away if we find anything. We’ll bag this up and get it shipped out.”

  “Can’t somebody come here?” Tanya asked.

  “Nope, can’t do it that way. Got to have it opened under controlled conditions.”

  It was all they could do. They left the team to it. None of it was going to help, they hadn’t expected a map and note telling them where to find Jane, or what was left of her, but they had for a while felt that they were getting somewhere. They were disappointed and disheartened.

  “We’ll go to the services, see if anyone there knows who this Peter is,” Tanya said.

  At the last moment, before they left, Tanya turned to the disgruntled SOCO officer, “Oh yes, and anything about angels, I need to know that as well.”

  “Angels?”

  “Yes.” As they turned to go they heard him muttering under his breath, “Angels now, it’ll be bloody Hobbits next.” Despite the circumstances Charlie couldn’t hold back a grin.

  * * *

  The night manager was no help, he didn’t know anything about someone called Peter, he hardly knew George Simpson, but made the point that he didn’t like him. They rang the assistant manager Tanya had spoken to, but he was no help either. He was aware of Peter turning up now and then and having coffee with George Simpson, didn’t think they were that friendly, but it was none of his business; again he made the point that he found George hard going, and hadn’t been anything more than a work colleague.

  They went through George’s desk, his filing cabinet, everything appeared to be fairly straightforward, but now they knew it was not. He surely wouldn’t have anything here that related to what they had found in his garage. They would have it all examined but they needed something quicker than going through staff lists that may well not exist, and delivery notes.

  It was Charlie who mentioned the church. “If he helped with charity work, this Peter, then maybe the church would know who he was.”

  “Brilliant. But how do we find out which church? Do we know?”

  “It’s Methodist, we know that. I suppose we should start with the nearest one to where he lived.”

  Although it was late the pastor agreed to meet them at the church. “We have an office there. I think I know who you mean, but I don’t have the information here at home. Is he alright? Is George okay?”

  Tanya gave Charlie a thumbs up, they were already on the way, “I can’t tell you very much at the moment, vicar, but I’d be really grateful for your help.”

  “I’m not a vicar, Inspector, but don’t worry about that. I’ll go and open up, see what I can find. Do you know where we are?”

  “Yep, we’ve got you on the sat nav, thanks.”

  “Ah, marvellous isn’t it?” With a chuckle he rang off.

  Chapter 39

  The church office was cold, Pastor Borthwick offered them coffee which they refused, trying to instil in him a sense of urgency. Again, he asked about George and they put him off, simply telling him that their enquiries were part of an ongoing investigation.

  After what seemed an age, pulling out files, replacing them and moving on to the next battered old filing cabinet, he pulled out a plastic folder and placed it on the desk.

  “I think it’s in here. Peter Harper, that’s who I had in mind. Do
you think this could be who you mean? He did quite a lot of work with George, collecting things for the jumble,” he shrugged, “all that sort of thing. He’s had a hard life has Peter, his mother was an unfortunate I believe. Drugs and so on. Peter lived with his grandmother for a long time and then she had to be moved to a nursing home. If I remember correctly she died quite recently, a few months ago. His mother disappeared completely some years back. A bit of a loner I suppose you could say, but helpful.” The pastor sucked at his teeth, lowered his head.

  “Do you have a picture?”

  “Not in here, these are just the general details of our helpers.”

  “Can we have those please?” She pulled out her phone ready to photograph the pages.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I mean what about erm, data protection and all that?”

  “I promise you this is a matter of life and death, vicar.”

  “Not vicar.”

  “Okay – whatever. I could get a warrant, it would take time and I really need this information now. Please.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his brow furrowed, then turned back to the cabinets. “I think we might have a photograph here somewhere. Peter has some sort of minibus and sometimes helps out with transport. If you could be surer you see, if you could be more confident that he’s who you mean.” His voice was muffled as he bent over a low drawer. While he was looking away Tanya opened the file, took a picture of the page, and was betrayed by the flash in the dim room. The pastor straightened up, grabbing the file. He pulled it towards himself with a tut, replaced it with a parish magazine opened to a page about trips and visits. Tanya lifted the cheap little booklet to her face and peered at the small image accompanying the article. A bony finger pointed to a man in dark clothes at the end of the row of middle aged travellers. “That’s him. Peter.”