The DCI Morton Box Set

by Sean Campbell

  'So you've got nothing useful for me.'

  'Didn't say that, did I? The system also logs when it fails to read a plate. It's got an entry for yesterday at 4.31 p.m. and an unauthorised exit at 5.58 p.m.'

  'A car?'

  'Naw, not unless they use high-gloss paint to reflect the lights and obscure the plate. My bet would be someone on foot. They ain't got a number plate, so the system logs it as an anomaly, see.'

  'Thanks, you've been very helpful.'

  ***

  Even modern medicine didn't work every time. Zachariah hadn't reacted well to the surgery, and the swelling had increased too quickly for anything to be done. A tear rolled down Jayne's cheek, and then another before it built to a steady stream. The entire team had spent four years fighting for that little boy. They had genuinely begun to believe he might defy the odds. No Tay-Sachs baby had ever survived much beyond their fourth birthday, and at Guy's the average was close to two. Zach had been almost halfway to his fifth birthday, a record for a Tay-Sachs child. He was deaf, almost blind, had a respirator to breathe and a feeding tube to keep him nourished, but he was alive. Jayne knew it would be devastating for his father to know Zachariah had passed away while he wasn't there. He had been present virtually every day for the boy's entire life, and had even managed to take him home for brief spells in the first few years of treatment.

  The body would be taken to the morgue, and as per Yosef's wishes a rabbi would be summoned from the multi-faith chapel located in an outbuilding at Guy's.

  Jayne picked up the phone one last time. This time, she hoped she would get through.

  ***

  'What have you got for me?' Morton was in the forensics lab.

  'We've got two sets of blood on the floor at the Gershwin crime scene.'

  Morton almost did a little dance. Now all he had to do was find his suspect and DNA would do the rest. He settled for a little yip of glee that escaped him before he could contain his excitement.

  'Please tell me we've got fingerprints too.'

  'Sorry, got zip for you there.'

  'Damn.' Fingerprints would have been the icing on the cake. Few criminals jump from zero to cold-blooded killer, so there were good odds the perpetrator would be in the system.

  'You got anything else for me?'

  'Working on the processing still; I'll page you if anything comes up.'

  'Fine.' His tone was flat. He knew that 'I'll page you if anything comes up' was tech speak for 'get out of my lab'. He lifted himself out of the seat he'd assumed possession of for the session, and headed down to the morgue.

  ***

  Chiswick was as chipper as ever when Morton and Stephenson found him hiding in his tiny office at the back of the morgue. ‘Afternoon, David. What can I do for you?'

  'Hi, Doc. Please tell me you've got something for me.'

  'Yes and no. Cause of death was easy. Blunt force trauma to the rear of the skull. He literally had his head smashed in. That means a huge amount of force. I'd guess you are looking for a beefy guy in the six-foot plus range. Definitely not a woman in my opinion.'

  'What about these other injuries?' The body had suffered badly before the final blow was delivered.

  'He gave as good as he got. This injury here.' The doc pointed at the jawline, which was peppered with abrasions. 'This would have done some serious injury to the hand that did it.'

  'Bad enough he would have sought medical treatment?'

  'He'd be pretty dumb to, but it's worth checking with accident and emergency departments. We've got a few.'

  'I'll do it.' WPC Stevenson spoke up for the first time since entering the morgue. She hated seeing the recently deceased, and had loitered near the doorway as far from the men as she could have been without physically leaving. Before waiting for affirmation from her boss she dashed off to make the inquiries with A&E.

  'Got anything else?'

  'Nope, that's your lot. Audio-visual might have better news. That end of London is crawling with cameras, and our guy will have busted up his hand pretty hard. It might well be visible.'

  'Great; thanks, Doc.'

  Chapter 53: Getting Ready

  'No bloody way.' Eleanor's father, Oliver, had been particularly blunt. Usually slothful and willing to sit and listen, he had leapt to his feet when Edwin had announced his plans.

  'You didn't have a problem with Eleanor taking her to New York for work!' Edwin knew arguing was pointless, and he was going to do what he wanted anyway, but he needed to vent at the unfairness of their position.

  'That was different.' Eleanor's mother, Victoria, chipped in.

  'How?!'

  'Well, she's our daughter.'

  'Look. I'm taking the Vancouver job whether you like it or not, and Chelsea is coming with me.'

  'Please,' Victoria beseeched him, her eyes welling up at the thought of not seeing her. Chelsea clung to her grandmother's leg, trying to reassure her with a silent hug.

  'It's my choice.' Edwin put his foot down firmly.

  'Don't make me call our solicitor,' Oliver practically barked. His voice was beginning to become hoarse as emotions welled up inside his wrinkled facade. Calling a solicitor had become almost an in-joke in the family ever since Eleanor had qualified, but this time Oliver was deadly serious.

  'Chelsea, why don't you run and get yourself a slice of cake in the kitchen, dear?' Victoria silenced the men momentarily with a hand gesture. Chelsea didn't need to hear this.

  'Go for it. It'll cost you a fortune, and won't gain you a thing. Grandparents don't have rights.' It wasn't strictly true, but Edwin didn't care. English law wasn't concerned with rights of family members so much as it was the best interests of the child.

  Oliver leapt to his feet, pain shooting down his aging legs as he straightened up. He was on the cusp of turning violent.

  'Please.' Victoria tried again, beginning to beg. Chelsea was her only granddaughter, and her son was unlikely to be providing her further progeny anytime soon as he was still in rehab.

  'I'm not trying to be deliberately hurtful here. I've got to go with the work, and the Canadians are offering me an amazing job opportunity.' Edwin tried to be conciliatory. He hadn't come here to be aggravating.

  'Will you let us visit?' she asked.

  Edwin nodded. He wouldn't deny Chelsea access to either set of grandparents. His own parents weren't too happy either, but had grudgingly agreed to support their only son. Oliver's clenched fist began to unfold as he realised that Chelsea would still be in his life.

  'How about I make sure to ring you when we come back to visit my parents, and you can see Chelsea then?' Edwin offered the only olive branch he was willing to concede.

  Victoria's face flooded with a smile, and even Oliver relaxed as they realised that Edwin was willing to be reasonable.

  'Deal.'

  With that it was settled; the Murphy family was going to Vancouver.

  ***

  The boys in AV were excited. Their work was often under-appreciated, but David Morton was well known for giving credit when due, and what they had would break the case.

  'You paged me. It better be good.' Morton had to duck to fit inside the booth used for audio-visual analysis. Monitors were crammed along every inch of the wall, and its operator was sitting cross-legged in his chair, waiting proudly to show off what he had found.

  'It is, sir. Marylebone comes under the City of Westminster council, so we retrieved all the CCTV for the day in question, and began to look for who was in the general area.'

  'You find someone?'

  'Hundreds of people. It's a busy area. We know from the canvassing deputies did in the area that a workman was in the garage. We started trying to find him, as we thought he could potentially be our star witness.'

  'But he's not a witness. He's the perp.' A light bulb clicked on in Morton's head.

  'Exactly. No one else went in or out, and it explains why no one noticed him.'

  'So, you tracked him on the CCTV?'


  'Yep. He disappears after a while, but not before leaning against a bus stop while flagging down a taxi.'

  'Where?' If they were quick, they might still be able to pull prints, and run them through the national database.

  'Park Road. Opposite the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.'

  'I'm on my way.'

  ***

  Morton pulled the prints from the bus stop himself. It wasn't a job he was required to do, but he hated sitting around waiting for someone else to carry out the grunt work, especially when he was fully certified to do something so basic. The job took much longer than he expected as there were hundreds of prints.

  By the time he was finished it looked like someone had dusted the whole bus stop, as if a bag of cocaine had been exploded nearby. Each print was lifted by hand, and the techs back at the lab would scan the lot to digitise them, and then compare them all with the national database.

  By the time he had logged all the prints, it was nearing dark. He dropped the lot off for the graveyard shift to begin processing, and headed home. Sarah would be annoyed if he didn't make it back by the time dinner was on the table.

  ***

  Edwin had begun packing moments after sending his acceptance email.

  He wanted to leave the bulk of the furniture in the house, as he knew that would aid an eventual sale, and he didn't fancy the cost of transatlantic shipping anyway. The rest would be put in storage until he needed it. The paper had agreed to a relocation allowance for him, so his new pad would be furnished exactly how he liked it, rather than to Eleanor's more refined taste. A huge flat-screen television was top of his to-buy list.

  The plan was to rent at first. The move wasn't irrevocable if he found that he missed the big smoke. His townhouse in Belgrave Square would rent out for an obscene amount that might well eclipse his new salary, and a similar property in Vancouver, while pricey, would certainly not run to quite as much. He was ready for a smaller place, less showy and not so central. A decent garden would go a long way to keeping him in Canada.

  Chelsea wasn't so enthusiastic. As he boxed up, she was kicking and screaming in that infuriatingly high-pitched way that only little girls can do.

  'I don't want to!' she screamed, her pigtails bouncing up and down as she jumped.

  'Why not, baby?'

  'My friends are here!'

  'You'll make new friends, princess.'

  It didn't matter how reasoned Edwin's reply was, the conversation always looped back to the beginning.

  'Don't want to!' was the order of the day, and nothing he could say was going to change that.

  ***

  The prints at the bus stop belonged to almost fifty individuals. Thirty-six were in the system for one reason or another. Morton immediately discounted all the women, the non-whites and the sole disabled person on the list. The photos clearly showed a tall white male. That still left ten possibilities among the known prints, and a further fourteen in the unknown pile.

  Morton fervently hoped that the perpetrator was among those on file, as otherwise it was almost back to square one again. He was actively pursuing the victim angle as well, and had sent deputies to canvass work colleagues, friends and family, but nothing useful had surfaced yet. If the forensics team didn't find him a potential suspect he would have to concentrate his personal efforts on getting inside the life of the victim.

  He gave WPC Stevenson the job of sorting the suspects into a list. She'd have to prioritise the order in which he approached them to try and maximise his efficiency. He could get used to having a personal WPC following him around like a puppy. It wouldn't last of course. Sooner or later HR would pronounce him fully fit to return to work, and then he'd have to do his own grunt work.

  Chapter 54: Shotgun Reflexes

  'Police! Open up!' Morton called out.

  They heard someone scrabbling around inside.

  'He's going for the fire escape! Open it!' He gestured for the man with the ram to step in.

  The door splintered in one hit, the metal ram making short work of the plywood. WPC Stevenson thrust a hand in front of Morton, gesturing for him to stay back.

  'Remember what happened last time?' she whispered with a wink.

  'Snarky bitch,' he muttered, under his breath. He stepped back all the same.

  She raced in, followed by three more deputies. They pressed forwards, advancing on different rooms.

  'Clear!'

  'Clear!'

  'Got visual!'

  WPC Debra Stevenson made it first. A shot rang out, and she crumpled to the floor, clutching at her abdomen to try and stem the bleeding.

  'Shit!' Morton pulled his weapon, and charged in. The target, Antonio Milano, was shaking violently. He had never fired a gun before. Morton nudged the gun gently out of his hands, passing it backwards to the waiting hands of a constable.

  'Antonio Milano, you are under arrest...' Morton began, clicking the handcuffs onto the suspect. Another officer radioed for medical attention. She was bleeding out fast, a rosy stain spreading across her blouse.

  ***

  WPC Stevenson was rushed to hospital faster than Morton thought humanly possible. But first he kept pressure on the wound until the paramedics arrived, and only reluctantly let go even then.

  The bleeding was profuse. Gushing spurts of blood erupted between the paramedic's fingers. By the time she was taken to the ambulance the group looked like a horror film. With the level of bleeding she was experiencing it quickly became apparent she would need a blood transfusion on arrival at the hospital.

  'What's her blood type?' The paramedic demanded.

  'Oh God.' Morton's usually-perfect memory turned up a blank.

  'Think, damn it!' The paramedic actually yelled at him.

  'O Positive,' he replied as the ambulance screeched to a stop.

  'Good man. Let's get her inside.'

  ***

  WPC Debra Stevenson was pronounced dead less than fifteen minutes after she arrived. The blood loss had been too dramatic. Morton howled as he was given the news. Her foibles had annoyed him, but in the two short weeks they had been working together he had become quite fond of her.

  He'd have to inform the family personally. She was his responsibility, and died as a direct result of a live investigation. Then he'd get revenge on the bastard that did this. Five minutes alone with Antonio Milano would be all he'd need. Beyond that he didn't care what happened. The serial-killing bastard would suffer.

  ***

  'Give me a few minutes.' Morton gestured for the custody sergeant to leave the interview suite.

  Without a word to the suspect, Morton kicked his chair over backwards, toppling him to the floor.

  'She's dead.' He spat at Antonio Milano, narrowly missing his face.

  'I didn't mean-a to do it,' he said with a thick accent that added an 'a' to the end of every word.

  'You shot her in cold blood.' He shook Antonio as rage coursed through him, avoiding the urge to punch him, so there wouldn't be any marks.

  'You burst in on me, with guns!' He had a point.

  'We came to talk to you, and you shot at us.'

  'Whaddya wanna talk about?'

  'Yosef Gershwin.'

  'Who's-a that?' His accent was grating on Morton, who was by now convinced it was being put on just to piss him off.

  'Don't play games with me,' Morton growled; his voice was gravelly, barely containing his anger.

  'I don't-a know him!'

  As Morton was about to berate him further someone knocked on the door.

  'Come in,' Morton said, edging away from the floored man.

  A uniformed officer walked in, his eyebrow cocked at the scene in front of him.

  'He fell over.' Morton knew he was convincing no one.

  'OK. Got some results back for you, boss.' He handed him an envelope.

  Morton tore open the strip at the top and decanted the contents into his hands.

  Antonio Milano's DNA didn't match. He d
idn't kill Yosef Gershwin.

  ***

  The list was getting shorter by the hour. A number had been interviewed by deputies, and all had alibis for the time of the killing. None had any connection to Yosef Gershwin.

  There were three possible suspects left when Morton struck gold. Anthony Duvall was a low-level drugs dealer who had spent time at Her Majesty's pleasure, and his previous line-up photos, while out of date, did conform to the CCTV upon a visual inspection.

  Morton pulled up his address in the system; it was still listed, as his parole was fairly recent and the system hadn't been purged since. It was local.

  He shouted for a few deputies to join him. This time they were taking no chances. They would surround the property with enough deputies to guarantee they nailed their man.

  Thirty minutes later, and they were outside in unmarked vehicles. They couldn't afford to spook their man lest someone else end up getting hurt. Morton hung back. He was under strict instructions from HR not to take any risks. One more bullet or blade, and that would be the end of his career.

  It was with great trepidation that he kept back, waiting near the entrance to the apartment building. There were two doors into the building, and each was manned by two officers. No one would go in or out without their say-so, and Morton was fully prepared to go door-to-door to find their man. This time, they had found him. Morton knew it in his gut.

  Six flights up they paused on the landing to make sure neither had built up an oxygen debt.

  'Ready?' Morton whispered.

  Bertram Ayala, and another officer whose name Morton didn’t know, were up front. Ayala nodded, and Morton give them the thumbs up to go-ahead. Flat 617 was just down the hall.

  'Police! Open up!'

  A chain rattled, and the door inched open.

  'Got some ID?' Anthony Duvall was cool as a cucumber.

  Ayala flashed his badge, and the door slammed shut. He expected to hear the chain rattle again, and the door open. Instead he heard the toilet flush.

  'Open her up!' Morton ordered. Ayala slammed the battering ram into the door. It stayed in one piece, but swung open.

  Ayala advanced, running ahead to clear the flat. They found Duvall in the bathroom trying to stuff packets of white powder down the toilet. He threw his hands up in surrender the moment the police burst in.