Baby's Got Blue Eyes: Introducing DI Ted Darling

by L M Krier

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  About the Author

  Contact List

  Acknowledgements

  Baby's Got Blue Eyes

  introducing DI Ted Darling

  L M Krier

  Copyright © 2015 LMK Tither

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design DMR Creative

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Fisherman's Friend is a registered trade mark of the Lofthouse of Fleetwood Ltd Company of Lancashire

  To Marty

  Chapter One

  Ted Darling snapped out an arm to stifle the strident ring of the mobile phone on the bedside table before it woke his sleeping partner. At the same time he smiled to himself at the absurdity of the gesture.

  As he took the call, he looked over his shoulder to where Trevor lay spread-eagled between the tousled sheets. Trevor always slept like a starfish, a dead one at that, taking up an incredible amount of space for such a slim, lithe figure.

  Ted was reduced to a few meagre inches at the very edge of the bed, with one arm and leg hanging out. What little room Trev was not taking up was occupied by an assortment of cats, seven, if they were all there as usual.

  Trev was still sleeping the deep sleep of the innocent, silky-black curls framing a head-turning face. Outrageously long, thick black lashes to the lids concealed those devastating baby blue eyes which meant Trev was seldom refused anything.

  'Hello?' growled Ted quietly. He had long since given up answering the phone using his surname – it took too long dealing with the inevitable wisecracks of his gruff voice opening the conversation with 'Darling'.

  He listened, grunting a few times, then said: 'Shit. I'm on my way.'

  The discovery of a body meant there was no time for a shower if Ted wanted to get there ahead of the circus, which was always his preference. He'd have to make do with a quick squirt of deodorant, a bit of mouthwash and finger combing his hair.

  Ted was, as they say, small yet perfectly formed. So small that people seldom believed him when he told them he was a copper, despite the minimum height requirement having long since gone. He was in such good shape he would pass for ten years younger than his forty. Trev largely saw to that, along with the sports Ted packed into whatever free time he had. There was not an ounce of fat anywhere on his body, just hard, defined muscle.

  His hair was the sort of thick dirty blonde which would probably never thin nor go grey. His eye colour would have artists and interior designers arguing for hours. Light hazel, tending to muddy green, depending on his prevailing mood.

  He slipped on dark jeans, added a cotton polo, picked up his leather jacket and headed for the garage, car keys already in hand. The early morning was still cold and things were quiet in the cul-de-sac of modest semis on an estate which had been reasonably respectable when he and Trev had set up home there ten years ago.

  Nowadays Ted tended to know more of his neighbours through his work than through any social life, although he largely kept to himself and left the Uniform branch to deal with the antics of the local scallies. The extra locks on the garage were not for his elderly but reliable Renault but to protect Trev's baby, a shiny Triumph Bonneville T100, with its red custom paint, largely paid for by Ted.

  It was not far from the house to the location of the body, not even far enough for the Renault's heater to make any difference to the chilly interior. Ted swung off Marple Road and continued down a no through road towards playing fields at the bottom. He spotted a squad car on blues, parked across the road at the end, and two PCs starting to unwind tape to protect the crime scene.

  Ted pulled up, lowered his window, and greeted the two men with a 'Morning, what we got?'

  'Morning sir,' one of them replied. 'She's across the far side of the fields, down the bank towards the river. A couple of your team are there already and the doc's just arrived.'

  Ted gave them a thanks, then pulled out a packet of Fisherman's Friend sweets from his jacket pocket. He waved them at the nearest of the PCs and asked: 'How many for this one?'

  'You'll probably get away with one for this one, sir, she's fresh!' he called back cheerfully, pulling the tape back so the DI could drive through.

  Everyone had their own way of dealing with the gruesome side of the job. Ted's was his addiction to the strong menthol sweets he always kept in his pocket. It was a standing joke at the nick, how many the DI would need to munch his way through for the worst of the bodies.

  Ted followed a tarmac road round to the far side of the playing fields, where the vehicles parked told him that most of the Scenes of Crime and allied services had just arrived and were going about their business. A passing officer directed him over to the trees where he could see others making their way down a narrow path.

  It was almost fully daylight now but it would be darker in the woods, especially underfoot, so Ted had taken his Maglite from the glove compartment before he headed in the same direction. The short path led down to the riverbank, opening out into a wide grassy space. Ted saw that two of his team were already on site.

  DCs Tina Bailey and Rob O'Connell were good solid officers, so he knew the basic groundwork would be done faultlessly. He heard the police surgeon before he saw him. Tim Elliott seemed to have a perpetual cold or a succession of allergies. If it was true that sneezing destroyed brain cells, it was a wonder he was still functioning
at all, let alone as a doctor.

  In his usual way, the doctor started speaking even before Ted had reached him, with no sign of a greeting, just plunging straight in with whatever chaotic thoughts were circulating through his brain.

  'Definitely dead, definitely not natural causes, throat's been cut cleanly. Been dead anything up to forty-eight hours, I would say. Not killed here, killed elsewhere and brought here. Both breasts have been removed with what looks like surgical precision.

  'Bizarrely, on first examination, it looks as if all her body hair has been removed very recently, possibly after death, and the body may have been cleaned in some way. Her head is shaved, pubic hair is missing, none anywhere else on the body. Going to be an interesting one.'

  He was already walking away before he'd finished the last sentence, so Ted threw a 'goodbye' at his retreating back and turned back to his DCs.

  'Fill me in,' he said.

  'The guy over there found her, sir,' Rob said. 'Luckily he had the presence of mind to back away before he chucked his breakfast up, so the crime scene is relatively uncontaminated.'

  Ted shot a glance towards the man. 'What was he doing down here at that time of the morning?' he asked.

  'Walking his dog, sir,' Rob replied. 'The German Shepherd attached to him by a lead is a bit of a giveaway.'

  Rob knew he could get away with the odd wisecrack with the DI, who was the best he had ever served under. There was a line he knew it was unwise to cross, but he hoped that he had stayed on the right side of it, despite the look the DI threw at him.

  'Must have been dark when he found her though. Bit of an odd time for a dog walk?'

  'Have you seen the size of that dog, boss?' Rob answered. 'I wouldn't be worried walking anywhere at any time of day or night with that brute next to me.'

  'Fair enough. Legit, do you think?'

  'Yes sir, definitely on the level, I would say. He looks really shaken up. I'll give him time to come to a bit before I get a statement from him,' Rob replied.

  'Any ID on her? What do we know about her?'

  Ted was looking towards the naked body all the time they spoke, munching his Fisherman's Friend, but he made no attempt to approach too close. He left that to the experts.

  Tina answered this time. 'No ID anywhere we can see so far, sir, and no sign of a weapon. She was left totally naked, no signs of any clothing or personal possessions in the immediate vicinity. Alice looks to be early twenties from what we can see and from what the doc confirmed.'

  Tina always gave a name to any unidentified body until the real ID was discovered. She said it was more personal, a way of humanising the body rather than just referring to it as 'the body' all the time. Ted was in favour of anything to increase respect amongst his officers, so was happy to go along with it.

  'Right, thorough ground work here, witness statement from the dog walker, knock on some doors on your way back. Quite a way to lug a body from the nearest place to park a car. Someone may well have seen or heard something. I'll organise some reinforcements from Uniform for a site search.

  'We need to find a weapon, clothing, personal effects, anything at all to help us,' Ted told them. 'Let's try and get an ID as soon as we can, so when you get back in get started on checking Missing Persons for a possible match. I'm going in to brief the Boss. We're a team member down and we need someone good on this one, by the look of things.'

  He'd just lost possibly the best Detective Sergeant he had ever worked with. When the shakes first started, Jack Gregson probably thought, like the rest of them, that he'd been hitting the bottle harder than he realised. He even went on the wagon for a few months, but it didn't make any difference and his symptoms just kept getting worse.

  The diagnosis of Parkinson's disease came right out of left field. It rarely affects people under fifty and Gregson had only just turned forty. It brought his career to an abrupt end and took away Ted's right-hand man and a good one, who would be hard to replace.

  Time to turn up the pressure on the DCI to get him the promised replacement. This case looked as if he was going to need his team up to full strength and with the best officers available to him.

  Chapter Two

  'Morning, Darling,' the DCI said as Ted walked into his office, after a peremptory knock.

  'Morning, Super,' Ted replied, taking a seat in response to the Boss's nod towards the chair.

  The DCI leant his wardrobe-sized bulk back in his chair until it creaked in protest.

  'Ah, the old ones are always the best, eh, Ted?' he smiled.

  It was a long-standing joke between the two men, in clumsy camouflage of the deep mutual respect they felt. The DCI was not yet a Superintendent but his ambition to become one was no secret and it made the joke work better.

  'Do you want some coffee?' he asked, moving towards the coffee machine in a corner of his small office, which always looked overcrowded and cramped with him in it.

  'It's an offence under the Trade Descriptions Act to call the muck you make coffee. But I like to live dangerously, so I'll risk it,' Ted joked.

  Once they were both sitting down to the evil, black brew the DCI called coffee, he switched into serious mode.

  'I don't like bodies on our patch, Ted, I hope you're going to wrap this one up with your usual swift efficiency. Fill me in on what you've got so far.'

  'Nothing much to go on yet, Jim. No weapon, no clothing, no personal effects,' Ted replied.

  Within the walls of the DCI's office, the two men were relaxed and informal in each other's company. If any of the team members were in earshot, it was always 'sir' and 'DI Darling'.

  DCI Jim Baker liked Ted enormously, even if he didn't profess to understand his lifestyle. He knew he was without doubt the finest copper in the force, with an unrivalled mop-up rate, whose team thought the world of him and whose record was impeccable in all matters. No rough stuff in Ted's interviews, no late paperwork, just a tightly-run ship and an impressive list of cases solved and successful convictions.

  Even though Ted's relationship remained a mystery to him, he did secretly envy its stability. He knew Ted and Trevor had been together for more than ten years and were still blissfully happy. All he had to show for a marriage twice as long was a bleached and Botoxed wife who gave him stomach ulcers, a permanent overdraft and credit cards in meltdown.

  His wife's affairs were a badly kept secret. He knew she was shagging several younger coppers, as well as at least one local magistrate, to his certain knowledge. He knew too that some of his men were laughing at him behind his back because of it. It was one of the reasons he was pushing himself so hard up the promotion ladder. A higher rank would give him more ammunition for revenge.

  'Not a lot to go on yet, until we get the post-mortem report. Young woman, early twenties, no ID, left naked, throat cut, breasts removed. Some strange stuff going on, like all her body hair removed, possibly post-mortem, which is going to make it harder to identify her as we don't know her hair colour for one thing.'

  As Ted filled the DCI in, he saw a shadow pass over the other man's face. Jim's own rebellious daughter Rosalie had left home in her teens after endless violent screaming confrontations with her mother, and had not been in touch since.

  'So, to sum up,' the DCI said, 'we have no ID, no murder weapon, no motive and presumably no suspects. Shouldn't take you more than a day or two then, Ted. Oh, some good news for you, I've got you a new DS, he arrives tomorrow. From his record, he should be able to hit the ground running and be an asset.'

  'Do I know him?'

  'Possibly not,' the DCI replied. 'He's coming from Stretford, name's Mike Hallam, good references, they speak well of him there.'

  'So why's he wanting a transfer?' Ted's antennae were immediately twitching.

  'It seems genuine enough. The mother-in-law had a serious road accident not long ago which has left her disabled. The wife wants to live much closer to her so she can keep an eye on her as she's a widow, on her own.' There was a slight hesitation befor
e the DCI added, 'There might just be one small problem though, Ted.'

  Ted laughed good-naturedly and said, 'Don't tell me. Another case of an over-developed gaydar? He's heard about me and is worried I might have him doing embroidery instead of house to house?'

  The DCI looked uncomfortable. Although he liked Ted enormously, trusted him completely and accepted how he was to the best of his ability, he knew there were still others who didn't. He did his utmost to stamp out any form of discrimination amongst his officers, but this was always one area that left him feeling a little out of his depth.

  Ted chuckled, sensing his discomfort. 'Don't worry, I'll lay out the ground rules for him, set him straight - pun intended. He's probably not my type anyway, you know I like pretty toy-boys.'

  By now the DCI was squirming. Ted's sense of humour about his relationship was a bit of a step too far outside his comfort zone. He'd met Trevor on many social occasions and got on with him really well, finding him incredibly intelligent. But he was still old-fashioned enough to struggle with thoughts of him and Ted …. he brought himself up short from such mental images.

  Ted stood up to release him from his discomfort. 'Right, boss,' he said, back to briskly professional. Tina and Rob are in the field and once they get back in I'll get the team together for a briefing and see what direction we're going in. Meanwhile I'll start the team on a trawl of Missing Persons, see if we can get at least a few vague leads.'

  He hated even mentioning the words and watching the emotions they caused to ripple over the boss's face. Every time Ted got a shout of a young woman's body being found on his patch, he dreaded arriving on the scene and discovering it was Rosalie. Selfishly, he dreaded even more the thought that if one day it was, it would be up to him to break the news to the boss.

  It was worse at this time of year for the DCI and the families of other missing persons. With Christmas looming, there was always that forlorn hope that this might be the year for the card, the phone call or even the visit which would finally put an end to their suffering. That day had not come yet for the DCI and the longer time went on, the less likely it looked.