Edge of Crime: A Collection of Crime Stories

by John Moralee

  Thunder shouted back.

  *

  The next morning, he was still thinking about Wanda’s request. He would have to try persuading Kimberley once more.

  He spent the morning waiting for Kimberley to come to the bar, preparing what he would say. She arrived at noon. Again, her music moved him. She was so good she made him feel inspired to write his own songs. There was no way he would let her ignore her gift. Again, she dashed outside as soon as her hour ended. This time he begged her to listen to him. But she just ran away, scared and tearful.

  He knew what he had to do.

  *

  The very next day, Delaney waited for Kimberley to drive away. He was hiding in his car behind a wall of trees and kudzu. It was parked about a quarter of a mile from the house, on a one-lane road nobody used. He had been sitting there for three hours - smoking cigarettes he’d bought especially for that day - when she finally emerged and got into her yellow Ford.

  He had been dreading this moment.

  There was still time to change his mind …

  Kimberley started the engine and backed the vehicle onto the road. The car headed towards the town.

  As soon as he was certain she had gone, he set off on foot towards the house. He kept low in the grass, being careful to remain unseen. There was nobody nearby, but he was taking no chances. He was sweating so badly by the time he reached the porch that he had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. He tested the door with a gloved hand. It was unlocked. People still did that here because they trusted their neighbours. He stepped inside the house. He looked up the stairs. He climbed them one at a time and stepped onto the landing with a thudding heart. Slowly, he walked to Wanda’s room.

  “You came,” she said, the instant he peeked into the gloom.

  “I had no choice,” he said, sadly.

  “Can you see the morphine tablets on the dresser?”

  Indeed, he could. He nodded, not able to form words. His throat was dry. His hands were shaking. There was not just sweat in his eyes, stinging.

  “Five will do it,” she said.

  “F-five,” he stammered. How many was that? He was finding it hard to think. Five. That was one more than four, wasn’t it? Five. He picked up the bottle and studied the prescription label: DO NOT TAKE MORE THAN THE RECOMMENDED DOSE. He unscrewed the cap and looked into the bottle, seeing the tablets. He counted them out into his gloved palm. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  Wanda was waiting.

  Waiting to die.

  Waiting …

  *

  Afterwards, Delaney walked to the windows and pulled open the curtains. Bright sunshine bathed the bedroom, banishing the shadows as though they’d never existed. He unfastened the window latches and opened the windows, letting clean, summer air flow into the bedroom, billowing the curtains. He looked at the body in the bed. Wanda looked peaceful now.

  Hearing a noise, he turned back to the window. He could see a yellow dot on the road, returning.

  He would explain everything when Kimberley came home.

  He would tell her about the conversation he’d had with her mother. The first conversation; then the second one.

  Delaney would tell her how her mother had agreed to let him bring in some nurses and doctors to help with her care. He would tell her how he would pay for whatever was needed. No longer did Kimberley have to do everything alone. He was there. He would help in any way he could. He had understood that when looking down at the five tablets in his hand, knowing it was wrong to kill Wanda for convenience. Wanda had not wanted to die - she had just needed a reason to live. Her daughter’s future career was that reason. And so, he had returned the tablets to the bottle and explained what he would do. Wanda had agreed. Now, Wanda was sleeping soundly. He liked hearing her gentle snores.

  They sounded like music, beautiful music.

  The New Boss

  Lisa Boone’s first case as a DCI was a possible quadruple murder.

  That wintry morning she found herself just outside a little Welsh town with an unpronounceable name, watching the police divers searching the lake for other bodies, while the white ghosts of the forensic team analysed the tyre marks left on the embankment.

  Dark clouds cast black shadows on the forested hills around the valley, threatening rain. It had not rained during the weekend, but the ground was damp under her shoes. The air was thick with moisture that clung to her skin and clothes like a wet blanket. In case it started to rain, the forensics team would have to set up some tents to preserve the evidence. Everything was grey and murky, making her wish she could go home to bed and snuggle under the duvet with her husband Roger. He was probably still asleep. It was after all only seven a.m.

  By seven, Lisa Boone had been at the crime scene for two hours and on the road for another hour. This was her first coffee break. She gripped a Styrofoam cup in her gloved hands, welcoming the heat radiating into her fingers, thinking about how she would feel if her daughter had been one of the teenagers. Anna was fourteen, not much younger. If Anna had been murdered ...

  Boone shivered. She was really feeling the weather despite wearing a heavy grey overcoat. Her teeth were chattering. Her nose was red and numb. She also had the beginning of a cold coming on. It wasn’t exactly the best Monday on record to be investigating some murders.

  Already, two victims had been recovered from the lake: a boy and a girl. The cause of death in both cases was not known, but the coroner suspected drowning. They were in black bags inside the coroner’s van parked on the muddy embankment. They had yet to be identified (the water had made their faces unrecognisable), though it was definitely not an accident that had killed them.

  Bound and gagged people did not kill themselves.

  Earlier that morning the boy had been found floating in the water close to the shore by a milkman making his pre-dawn deliveries. His body had been fully dressed, but he had no wallet or other identification. As the local police recovered his body from the water, they had discovered a second body washed ashore, a teenage female, also bound and gagged.

  The police had contacted Cardiff, asking for assistance.

  After Boone had driven to the town, she had learnt from the local police four teenagers had been missing since Friday night. They had last been seen inside a white transit van. An hour ago, that van had been discovered in the lake, submerged in forty feet of water. The van had been driven off the road at a point where the water was known to be deep, which meant the killer was likely familiar with the area. The van would probably have never been discovered if it had rained or the bodies had not floated up to the surface. The killer’s bad luck was Boone’s good luck, but only if she could take advantage of it. Time was a factor in all investigations. The 24-hour rule didn’t apply here, but the sooner she had some suspects the more likely that the case would be solved.

  She could see a ripple in the dark water. Bubbles. Suddenly, a diver burst to the surface, waving. Finally, that meant the winch cable had been connected to the van. The tow truck standing by started pulling in the cable. She walked over to the truck.

  “How long will it take?” she shouted at the driver.

  “Ten – twenty minutes.”

  “Which is it – ten or twenty?”

  “Twenty,” he said.

  She hated waiting. Two bodies were waiting to be driven to the pathology lab in Cardiff, but she had potentially two more in the water. It seemed like a waste of resources to send just two off when she could wait for the van to be raised, which could contain the others.

  She wished the tow truck could pull faster, but the cable was moving at its maximum speed. She envied the detectives she had sent to speak with the relatives of the teenagers. They would be in nice warm buildings, not freezing outside.

  Twenty minutes later, the transit van broke the surface. The once-white transit van was now coated in black sludge and green slime. It was coming out backwards. The rear doors were wide open, revealing the filthy interior. The open doors explaine
d why the bodies had fallen out.

  Boone waited until the van was completely out of the water before she waved for the winch to be stopped. The van was on the embankment, looking like it had been under the water a couple of years. A boyish forensics officer peered inside.

  “We’ve found the third one!” He sounded happy.

  Boone wasn’t happy.

  “What about the fourth?” she wanted to know.

  Unfortunately, nobody had an answer.

  *

  Boone looked into the van with a powerful torch, being careful not to touch anything. Thick sediment had turned the interior black and water dripped from the roof. The rear seats looked like sinister, crouching human shapes. There was a blanket on the floor between the seats soaked in black grime. The third body was bound on the floor, the legs trapped under a seat. It wasn’t easy to identify the sex by looking at the face – the water had bloated it - but the victim was wearing silk blouse and a short skirt. The second girl. Her watch had stopped at 3.22 a.m.

  Boone shone her torch over the front seats. She could see the dashboard was coated with foul-smelling sludge. Something glinted under the driver’s seat. It was a heavy toolbox, also covered with sludge except where the metal was showing through.

  The gleaming white suits of the forensics team were going to be filthy when they had finished examining the van, Boone knew. She did not envy their work. The chief forensic officer did not need to tell her it was unlikely they would get any fingerprints from the van; she already knew it: water was one of the worst substances for destroying evidence, especially DNA. Boone knew the man would try his best, though. Everyone working on the case was dedicated.

  Boone hoped, as the new DCI, she could lead them to a successful conclusion, finding the killer/killers.

  She would be probably demoted if she didn’t.

  *

  Some hours later, her team of detectives gathered in a small room inside the local police station. It was a terrible temporary HQ, but it was all they had for the time being – a tiny office with cigarette-yellowed walls and no windows. As she entered the room carrying her Dell laptop, DI Michael Hollis greeted her.

  “Congratulations,” he said. She frowned. “On the promotion, ma’am. You deserve it.”

  “Oh, yes, thank you.” The “ma’am” made her feel old. She was only three years older than Hollis. They used to be on first name terms – friends - but the change of rank meant a change of attitude. “You don’t have to call me ‘ma’am’, Mike.”

  “I’m sorry. What should I call you?”

  “Uh – whatever you think’s appropriate, I suppose. You can call me Lisa when we’re off duty, just like before.”

  “And when we’re not?”

  Boone shrugged.

  “We used to call DCI Hammond ‘boss’ before you replaced him. He liked it.”

  “Boss? That’s fine with me.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Boone walked to the back of the room, putting her laptop on a table facing a row of blue plastic chairs. The detectives were complaining about how uncomfortable they were like a group of whining children. Boone was now in charge of her ex-colleagues, including DI Michael Hollis, who had applied for the same promotion. Michael Hollis was a good detective, but she didn’t know yet if her being his boss would effect their previously cordial relationship. She hoped not. Boone faced her audience feeling tense and nervous. There were a few faces she didn’t recognise – transfers just like her. She asked them to introduce themselves.

  “I thought it’d be a good idea if we went over the information we have so far,” she said. She had their attention. Good. “First of all, a woman called Rachel Rhys made out a missing persons report on her daughter Holly on Saturday afternoon. Holly had not come home after a night out with her friends, which was not unusual, but she had not answered her mobile phone, which was. After trying to contact Holly’s best friend, Candice Owen, and Holly’s boyfriend, Greg Nolan – neither of whom had been seen by their parents since Friday night – Mrs Rhys filed a report with the local police. It wasn’t a very busy weekend for the police. The only other crimes they had to deal with were the vandalism of a bus shelter, the theft of a motorbike, and a couple of drunks fighting in the street. Unfortunately, the local police did not treat her report very seriously until the milkman discovered the first body. The police wrongly assumed Holly and her boyfriend had gone somewhere for the weekend and would return on Monday. Mrs Rhys last saw her daughter Holly alive at seven p.m. on Friday night, when she and Candice were seen getting into the back of a white transit van driven by Greg Nolan. Mrs Rhys saw Greg’s stepbrother Jamey Rider in the passenger seat. Mrs Rhys reported seeing nobody else with them, though someone else could have been in the van we don’t know about. She didn’t know where they went after they drove off, but she assumed they were going to see a band her daughter had mentioned playing a gig. The Scum Suckers.”

  “Nice name,” one detective commented.

  “I have all their CDs,” another joked.

  “We’ll need someone to find out where the Scum Suckers were playing on Friday. We need to know where that white van went. DCI Hollis can choose a team after I’ve finished talking.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  “I’d now like to tell you all about the forensics results. This is preliminary information – we’ll know more in a few hours. First, we now know the identities of the three victims thanks to the co-operation of their families. They are Holly Rhys, Candice Owen and Greg Nolan.” She showed pictures of the teenagers on her laptop, scanned from family photographs. “The other missing boy is Jamey Ryder, as I’ve already mentioned. He’s Greg Nolan’s stepbrother.”

  Jamey was a dark-haired boy with brown eyes.

  “Is he our chief suspect, then, boss?” a detective asked.

  Boss. The word was getting to her already.

  “Jamey Rider has not yet been found dead or alive. He is either a victim or a suspect, but until his body is found, I’m assuming nothing. The divers are still looking for him.”

  “Searching that lake could take days,” Hollis said. “If he doesn’t float, they’ll never find him, boss.”

  Was that a criticism of her?

  “It has to be done,” she said. “Now ...”

  A click of a key replaced the images on her laptop with post-mortem photographs downloaded from the pathology lab. Modern technology meant she could receive the autopsy reports from Cardiff while working the case here – no need for travelling back and forth. The detectives grimaced as they saw the gruesomely bloated, pale corpses.

  “Each victim was bound in the same way, suggesting the same person or persons tied up all three. There were no physical wounds, except rope burns on the wrists and feet and minor bruises probably sustained when the van crashed into the water. They were definitely alive and conscious when the van entered the lake.”

  She paused to let that sink in. Drowning had to be a terrible way to die. She remembered choking after swallowing water in a swimming pool. Drowning had to be a thousand times worse.

  “The rope used was a climbing rope sold only in good sports shops. I want someone to trace down where it was bought and who bought it – a volunteer?”

  An eager detective constable volunteered.

  “The black tape was a common make sold anywhere. However, the techs have obtained partial prints on the tape over Holly’s mouth and Greg’s. The prints have not been identified yet, but it will hopefully convict the suspect when we get one.”

  Hollis said: “He isn’t a genius, leaving prints, boss. We haven’t got a supervillain.”

  Some of the detectives laughed. She had the suspicion they were laughing partly at her. Hollis was turning into the resident comedian, using her as his foil. Every time he said the word “boss”, she detected the extra emphasis. The sarcasm. It was subtle but it was there. She guessed they had stopped being friends already.

  The detectives stopped laughing when Boone conti
nued. “There is also male DNA inside both female victims.”

  A female DC asked the question they were all wondering. “They were raped?”

  “Perhaps. There’s no bruising to prove it, though. It is possible the killer or killers forced the girls to have sex, perhaps believing they would be released if they complied. As you can imagine, this information is highly sensitive. We don’t want the relatives knowing about it. The lab is already looking for matches with known sex offenders. All we need is a suspect to match the prints and DNA, which is why we need to know more about the victims. I’ll re-interview the families myself. DI Hollis will head up a team tracing the white van. Good luck, everyone.”

  DI Hollis approached her after the meeting broke up. “Er, boss, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Why are you re-interviewing them? Is it because you don’t think I did a good job?”

  “No,” she said, quickly. “It’s just that the grief counsellors arrived after you spoke to them, so they’ve had time to deal with their shock. They might remember something they didn’t earlier. You know how it is.”

  “I see,” he said, sounding not very convinced. “I guess that you can think of questions I didn’t ask. I mean, you are the DCI.”

  He left her feeling like she had stepped on his toes. Damn it – she hadn’t meant anything by what she’d decided. She wanted to see the parents to satisfy herself nothing had been missed, but Hollis was convinced she didn’t value his work. A week ago, they had been friends – but now? Now there was tension between them.

  *

  “Mr and Mrs Rhys - I’m Detective Chief Inspector Boone.”