by David Hodges
‘Just do it and if anyone doesn’t like it, refer ’em to me.’
Gilham was plainly still far from happy. ‘There could be something else to worry about, though.’
‘Go on.’
‘Maybe our man kept the cuffs because—’
‘He intends using them again?’ Fulton crushed his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk as if he suddenly found the taste unpleasant. ‘Then we’d better pray we catch him first,’ he replied grimly. He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed his coat off the back of the chair. ‘Now, it’s time I went home, I reckon.’
Gilham nodded. ‘Yeah, me too. I’m meeting Emily Ford, Lyall’s daughter, at the morgue for formal ID of his body at just after nine.’
‘And the PM?’
‘We’re hoping for around two o’clock. Oh, by the way’ – he rummaged in his pocket to produce a computer printout – ‘LIO asked me to give you this.’
Fulton practically snatched the printout from him and studied it with an air of triumph.
‘Something to do with the inquiry?’ Gilham queried, hovering curiously, with one hand on the door handle.
‘Eh?’ Fulton looked up and quickly stuffed the printout into his pocket, inwardly cursing Oates for being so indiscreet. ‘No, just a little job he was doing for me.’
Gilham’s eyes narrowed. ‘Jack,’ he began.
Fulton held up one hand to stop him continuing. ‘Don’t go there, Phil, OK?’
His number two sighed heavily. ‘Jack, we’re in the middle of a murder inquiry. If you’re doing something on the side, maybe to do with Janet—’
‘I said forget it. My business.’
‘It won’t be if it gets out. Listen, Jack, I’ve heard all about your run-in with Miss PC—’
‘Miss who?’
Gilham made a face. ‘Dee Honeywell; they call her Miss PC. She’s not very popular on this police area.’
Fulton made to push past him into the incident room. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Now, are you going or not?’
Gilham didn’t budge. ‘She’ll have your “testimonials” if she hears about this, you know that, don’t you?’
Fulton reached past him and pulled the door open, forcing him to one side. ‘I doubt whether she knows what balls are, Phil.’
Gilham called after him as he strode purposefully past the banks of computers. ‘You need to get your head down, Jack.’
Fulton half-turned. ‘Don’t we all, Phil. See you in the morning.’
Gilham watched him lumber through the door into the corridor and shook his head slowly. ‘Damned fool,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I just hope she’s worth it.’
chapter 5
THE ROAD CUT into the closely packed pines like a shaft, dropping away so steeply that Fulton found himself constantly tapping his brakes to keep the car from overreaching itself and skidding off into a ditch. He was very tired and he knew he should have gone home and got his head down as Gilham had suggested. There was a lake of acid churning round in his stomach, his head felt as though it were cracking open and his eyes were so gritty and inflamed that he had to lean forward in his seat to see the road properly. Irresponsible? Yeah, what he was doing was that all right, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to find Janet and bring her back.
He didn’t try to kid himself that his motives had anything to do with love – that emotion had died a long time ago, shortly after he had found out about her affair with one of the control room inspectors – but he knew how vulnerable Janet was and in spite of all she had done to him over the last few months, he still felt responsible for her. Maybe a lot of what had happened was his own fault anyway. He had always put the job first, working God knew how many hours on the trot and spending far too much of what leisure time he had left down the police club or in a back street pub with the troops in order to keep the team together. He’d been so busy keeping things going at work that he just hadn’t seen the problems building up at home, especially after Janet had lost the baby and her depression had set in. Always too tired for anything when he got in, he had failed to appreciate that she had needs too – particularly the physical side of things. They hadn’t sat down and talked together properly for a long time now and sex had become anathema to both of them.
She had started drinking heavily a few months ago and became violent towards him soon afterwards. Trouble was, he had tried to deal with the problem on his own and that was a big mistake. Self-inflicted injuries to her face and arms, and accidental bruising caused when he had been forced to hold her off in the middle of one of her attacks, had been misinterpreted by her friends and he had ended up as the villain of the peace – the wife beater – a reputation that she made sure stuck to him. He’d even had a visit from the force welfare officer, a pompous little man who suggested that he was the alcoholic and needed help. He hadn’t earned himself any favours by giving his visitor some help of his own – straight out the front door and into the flowerbed – and had only avoided court action for assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Janet because she had refused to pursue her malicious complaints afterwards.
Everything was a mess and with the top brass breathing down his neck, he knew his private life needed sorting before it fell apart completely, forcing him into early retirement. Confronting Janet with her new man was probably not the cleverest strategy, but he had always tackled problems head-on and he couldn’t think of any other way.
He almost missed the entrance to Staple Farm Cottages – the sign was practically buried in the hedge – and his nearside wing clipped one of the gateposts as he swung into the narrow entrance. The pair of red-brick semi-detached cottages stood at the far end of a large unkempt garden. The further cottage was in darkness, but a single light burned in the upstairs room of the one nearer to him and he pulled up behind a familiar red MG sports car parked by the front door, its hood still down. He smiled grimly. So they were home then. Good.
His feet crunched on the gravel as he strode towards the front door, but the curtains drawn across the upstairs room remained closed and he guessed Janet and her boyfriend were too preoccupied to have heard either the approach of his car or the sound of his footsteps. But the two of them were not long kept in ignorance and his balled fist hammering with considerable force on the front door did more than stir the curtains of that cottage; out of the corner of his eye he saw an upstairs light spring into life next door.
It was Janet who came down and he guessed she must have realized who the caller was even before she opened the door.
For a moment she stood there in the living-room light, her knee-length dressing-gown open provocatively to the navel, revealing that she was wearing nothing underneath, and a mocking smile on her face. ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said. ‘So you got your tyres repaired then?’
He had intended trying to reason with her, to persuade her to come home and start afresh, but the sight of her blatant nakedness in another man’s house ignited the spark that was already smouldering in him. ‘Cover yourself up, damn you,’ he blazed, pushing past her into the living room.
‘Well, come in, why don’t you?’ she shouted after him.
He wheeled to face her, clumsy and awkward. ‘Do you have to walk around like that?’ he said, almost choking on the words.
She laughed without humour. ‘Like what, Jack?’ she mocked. ‘Like a tramp, you mean?’
He ignored the taunt and scanned the room. A log fire burned low in the grate and a man’s suede jacket lay across the seat of one of a pair of tattered armchairs set on either side of the hearth. ‘So where is he?’ he demanded. ‘Too frightened to answer the door himself, is he?’
She allowed the dressing-gown to fall open completely. ‘Probably exhausted, Jack,’ she replied. ‘We were actually—’
Grabbing her by the arm, he pushed her towards a half-open internal door. ‘I don’t want to hear what you were doing,’ he grated. ‘Now go and get your clothes on. I’m taking you home.’
‘You bastard!’ Without
warning, she turned sharply and launched herself at him, eyes blazing and fingers curled like talons, raking his face before he had a chance to defend himself. As he staggered back against the wall, she went for him again, but this time he was ready for her and slapped her hard across the face. The force of the blow must have temporarily dazed her, for she sank in a heap on the floor, sobbing hysterically, her dressing-gown slipping down over her shoulders.
For a few moments Fulton just stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists uncertainly. He should never have hit her – he had never done that before – but what was he supposed to do? The woman had flipped and would have had his eyes the second time. But he still felt ashamed and frustrated. He hadn’t come here to have a domestic, but to get her to come home. Now it had all gone wrong.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’
Fulton hadn’t heard the door open behind him and he turned quickly. The speaker, also wearing just a dressing-gown, was young and muscular, with the sort of tanned face and designer stubble that would not have looked out of place in a television commercial for men’s deodorant. This had to be the boyfriend, Doyle, he mused grimly as he dabbed the scratches on his cheek with his handkerchief.
‘Bastard hit me again,’ Janet sobbed. ‘He forced his way in here and hit me.’
Doyle stepped forward a pace, his own fists clenched. ‘Is this true? You hit her?’
Fulton threw him a contemptuous glance, but didn’t bother to answer him.
‘Janet,’ he said, bending down beside her. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I only came here to get you to come home.’
The burning hatred in her tear-filled eyes made him flinch. ‘Home?’ she sneered. ‘With you? What, so you can use me as a punchball again?’
Fulton straightened up, shaking his head slowly. ‘I’ve never ever hit you before,’ he said firmly, ‘and you damned well know it.’
She turned her head to smirk at him, her triumphant expression hidden from Doyle’s gaze. ‘That’s not what everyone else says,’ she retorted with just about the right amount of feeling in her tone, ‘and this time you’ve gone too far.’
‘I think you’d better leave.’
Doyle’s hand clamped firmly on Fulton’s shoulder and that was a mistake. With an oath, the big man swung an arm outwards in an angry gesture that was intended to shake him off. He did that all right, but instead of simply breaking the other’s grip, he sent Doyle crashing back into the wall, where he must have struck his head on a low-hung mirror, for he immediately slumped to the floor in a shower of glass shards, leaving a bright-red smear down the plaster.
In a second Janet was at her boyfriend’s side, tugging a handkerchief from her dressing-gown pocket to try and stem the bleeding. ‘You really have done it this time,’ she almost spat at Fulton over her shoulder. ‘This’ll cost you everything.’
The policeman had gone white. ‘I didn’t mean that to happen,’ he gasped. ‘I just pushed him away – I’ll call an ambulance.’
‘Just get out!’ she screamed as he jerked his mobile from his pocket. ‘Get out and don’t come back!’
Swaying unsteadily in a state of shock, he turned for the door and stumbled out into the cold night air, heading for his car and the freshness of the open road. He hardly noticed the elderly woman standing in the porch of the next cottage, staring after him, or the dark figure that had been watching the drama unfold through the kitchen window at the side of Doyle’s cottage and who now ducked down behind a conveniently placed water-butt as Fulton reversed in a swirl of gravel and roared off down the driveway.
chapter 6
FULTON WAS LATE again. He had slept in, thanks to his traumatic late-night encounter with Janet and the three double whiskies he had downed before turning in at around 1.00 a.m. DCI Gilham was waiting for him, a reproving look on his face when he lumbered into the incident room office.
‘Rough night, Jack?’ he said.
Fulton deposited himself in his swivel-chair with characteristic disregard for the gas-lift mechanism. ‘Thought I’d have a lie-in,’ he retorted.
Gilham turned his head to study the scratch marks on his face. ‘About time you changed your razor though,’ he went on. ‘It seems to have developed a serrated edge.’
Fulton glared at him. ‘I can do without the funnies this morning, thank you,’ he said.
Gilham hesitated. ‘You found her, then?’
‘Found who?’
‘Janet.’
Fulton took a deep breath. ‘Let’s just stick to business, shall we, Phil?’
Gilham shrugged. ‘As you wish. Headquarters have been on the line. They think we should hold a press conference pdq as they’re being inundated with calls they can’t answer.’
‘Tough. I’ve got nothing to say to that pack of jackals yet. When I have, the press office will be the first to know.’
Gilham hesitated. ‘We should try and use them, Jack. And it would take the heat off everyone a bit. Even the incident room is getting call after call.’
‘I said no; now what else is on the agenda?’
‘PM’s set for eleven this morning – they pushed it through ahead of schedule.’
‘In half an hour then. What about Lyall’s movements? Anything?’
‘Nothing as yet, though enquiries are still ongoing. We’ve checked out the local taxi and private hire firms and so far no trace of any pickups at his home.’
‘Which means he must have been collected by someone he knew or trusted.’
‘Like a copper, you mean?’
Fulton studied him for a moment, but ignored the dig. ‘And what about the enquiries I asked for into his background?’
Gilham shrugged. ‘Ben Morrison is liaising with senior crown court staff to see if he can turn anything up and I’ve got a team going over the old boy’s house again to see what we can find there. So far though, Lyall seems to have been an A-OK sort of a chap. A bit reclusive, but someone who moved in all the right circles. Ex-army man too, with quite a distinguished record, serving in Suez and various other hotspots, then during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland around 1975. Got the DSO in Armagh for rescuing someone under fire. Not a whisper of anything that could be a motive for murder.’
‘Nevertheless, I want you to keep on top of it. People don’t get their balls chopped off for nothing. There must be a skeleton somewhere.’
Gilham gave a wry smile. ‘And we all have those, don’t we, Jack?’ he sniped. ‘Which reminds me, you had a visit from the early-turn inspector. Apparently you asked Dee Honeywell to trace a plod patrol seen in Merchant Street around midnight last night.’
‘And?’
Gilham made a grimace. ‘Be nice, Jack, if you’d told me about that. I felt a right prat when he dropped by.’
Fulton sighed. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot on my mind.’
‘I realize that, but if we are supposed to be a team—’
Fulton held up a hand apologetically. ‘OK, OK, don’t throw all your toys out of the pram. I should have told you, yes. The journalist who blew the story – a reprobate by the name of Ewan McGuigan – buttonholed me yesterday and said the SP on the murder, together with the photo of Lyall’s body in the rec, was pushed through his letterbox in a sealed envelope around 00.45 hours – which was before Lyall was even found by Derringer.’
Gilham whistled softly. ‘Then the nocturnal postman must have been the killer.’
Fulton nodded. ‘McGuigan said he saw no one in the vicinity after the delivery except a police patrol car cruising past. I thought the plod in it might have clocked someone out and about in the area.’
‘And the envelope and contents?’
‘Already en route to the lab, but I doubt whether there’ll be anything on them of use to us.’
‘Ah, so that’s why the SOCO team were sent to Merchant Street this morning?’
‘Yeah, I thought they might come up with something off the letterbox. Long shot, but there you are.’
‘Well, talkin
g to Eddie Hutch a few minutes ago, I gather there were just a few smudged marks – nothing of any real value, and they could belong to anyone.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me, but at least we can’t be criticized later for not doing something.’
Gilham nodded, but he was still far from happy. ‘Jack, I have to say that all this “secret squirrel” stuff is not like you. We’ve done lots of jobs together in the past and you’ve always been right up front with me. If you don’t snap out of this business with Janet—’
Fulton’s aggression returned with a vengeance. ‘I’ve told you before, Phil, Janet is my business, so keep out of it! Now, what’s the SP from the early-turn inspector?’
Gilham started to say something, then changed his mind. ‘Merchant Street is on Area 3’s beat,’ he said, his tone now cold and resentful. ‘I’m told Alpha Shift were on nights when Lyall was murdered and their Area 3 is normally a PC Jenny Storey.’
‘Then we’d better have her interviewed pronto.’
‘No point. She was apparently in the nick with a prisoner from 23.00 until about 01.30 hours.’
Fulton was losing patience. ‘So who the bloody hell was it in Merchant Street?’
‘Area 4 – PC Derringer – would seem the most likely candidate. We can account for the locations of the rest of the mobiles through the control room log, but he hardly reported in all night – until he found Lyall’s body, that is.’
‘Derringer?’ Fulton breathed the word as if it were an expletive. ‘Our illustrious plod! That bugger seems to be popping up everywhere on this investigation.’
‘At least he seems to be out and about.’
‘Yeah, and well off his area this time.’
‘Probably poaching for collars. He has a good arrest record, don’t forget.’
Fulton looked unconvinced. ‘So, when is he next on duty?’
‘That depends. He reported sick today.’
‘Then we’ll have to get him seen at home.’
Gilham shook his head. ‘Not the done thing nowadays, Jack. It could be seen as harassment by the welfare lobby – even an infringement of his human rights.’
