‘All right, mate. Which bit of “Do not cross” don’t you understand?’
The voice comes from behind him. Female, but not Blunt. He realises her mistake even before he turns around. He’s still in his scruffy busker’s clothing, and she thinks he’s just some idiot who has decided to ignore the instruction written on the police cordon tape. He smiles, thinking he could have a bit of fun here.
He turns, a joke on his lips.
But then he sees her, and the intended mischief dissolves.
The young woman bearing down on him has platinum-blonde hair, tied in a neat ponytail. Dimples in her cheeks. A new suit that sweeps in at the waist. Male heads, and one or two female ones, swivel as she passes by.
All these years, and she hasn’t changed a bit.
‘Megan?’
Megan Webley halts. Blinks at him. The smile of recognition takes its time arriving.
‘Cody?’ she says with uncertainty. ‘Cody?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s me,’ he says awkwardly.
‘Oh my God. Oh my . . . I-I’m gobsmacked.’ She takes a couple of steps towards him. He’s not sure whether to throw his arms wide for a hug, or to play it safe and offer a handshake. In the event, he does neither.
She says, ‘What the hell are you doing here? Please tell me you’re undercover, and that you’re not about to ask me if I can spare some change.’
He laughs. ‘Are you trying to tell me something about my dress sense? You look fantastic, by the way.’
‘Thank you. And you look like . . . shit. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. I just came off a job. Now I’m on this one.’
She narrows her eyes at him. In puzzlement, perhaps, but Cody can’t help thinking she’s bracing herself for unwelcome news.
‘You’re on this case? How come?’
‘It’s what I do now. I’m with MIT. The undercover gig today was a one-off.’
‘You’re with . . . Seriously?’
‘Yeah. Why not? I might not be Sherlock Holmes, but I can do homicides. What about you? Weren’t you working in Warrington?’
‘For a couple of years. Then I was on the Wirral. And now this. Meet the newest member of your team. I started this morning.’
‘Really? Wow, that’s . . . that’s fantastic. Welcome aboard.’
‘Yeah. It’s, er . . . yeah.’ She looks at her feet for a moment, as if desperately trying to find her next line on a script she hasn’t rehearsed.
‘So,’ she says, switching her smile back on, ‘what’s it like, then – working with this bunch?’
Before Cody can answer, another voice cuts in.
‘He couldn’t be happier,’ says DC Neil Ferguson. ‘We do all the work, and he takes all the glory. Isn’t that right, Sarge?’
Ferguson is a lamp post of a man. Several inches over the six feet mark, and with a body on which a starving dog wouldn’t waste its time. Never able to shrink into the background, he compensates by being the classroom joker.
Webley looks into Cody’s eyes. ‘Sergeant, eh? Going up in the world.’
Cody isn’t quite certain whether she’s pleased for him or not. He is saved from deciding how to respond when Ferguson butts in again.
‘Sorry, but do you two know each other?’
‘We were in training together,’ says Cody. He sees Webley watching him closely, as if waiting to interject if he strays into territory she wants to keep private. ‘We haven’t seen each other for ages.’
Webley appears satisfied with that. ‘We must catch up some time,’ she says. ‘Talk about the good old days.’
He wonders if she means that, or if she’s saying it merely for Ferguson’s benefit.
‘Any time,’ he says.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Okay, well, I’d best get suited up. Don’t want to make a bad impression on my first day.’
She walks away. Cody and Ferguson watch her go.
Says Ferguson, ‘Small world. You and Wibbly, I mean.’
‘It’s Webley.’
‘Still, bit weird bumping into her after all this time. And you remembering her so well, considering she was just another copper in training.’
Cody sees the wry smile on Ferguson’s face. He says, ‘Don’t even go there, okay? We were just good mates. We had a laugh together.’
‘Right,’ says Ferguson. ‘Right.’ And he walks off, still smirking.
Five minutes later, Cody is in his white Tyvek coveralls, experiencing a mixture of emotions. He’s feeling the buzz, all right. Always does when he’s about to dive into a new case. For MIT to be called in, it has to be something special, something unusual. Otherwise, it would be handled by the local BCU, or Basic Command Unit. At the same time, he’s also a little apprehensive. A murder scene necessitates a dead body. A life has been curtailed. A future, with all its promise, all its potential, has been eradicated. Sometimes the acceptance of that fact hits Cody hard, and all the grief and sorrow that is to follow from those who loved the deceased can hit him harder.
But this time there’s an added complication. Megan Webley. He’s not yet sure how he feels about that. Maybe it’s not a complication at all. Maybe he’s making too much of it.
‘Cody.’
And here she is again. Looking lost and small inside the baggy shapelessness of her protective suit. Her face more serious.
She says, ‘I didn’t know. In case you’re wondering. I had no idea you’d moved. It didn’t even occur to me you might . . . You were always so passionate about undercover work.’
He doesn’t try to explain. Maybe another time.
‘Not a problem. Honestly. I’m fine with it. If you are.’
‘Me? Yeah, sure. It was a long time ago.’
‘It was. A long time.’
But he remembers it like it was yesterday. Megan Webley – his first true love. Well, his second if you count police work. And that was the problem. She was relegated to second place, and she was proud enough and strong enough not to stand for it. Good for her.
Cody wasn’t lying when he told Ferguson that they had met during training. But it didn’t end there. They became a tight couple. Managed to stay that way for eighteen months. But the nature of Cody’s work took its toll. For the safety of the officer involved, most undercover jobs are carried out at a distance from the home patch. Cody would be out of his girlfriend’s life for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. And it was dangerous. Webley wanted him to alter his role in the force. Cody refused. The relationship was doomed.
And now she’s back. On his team. They’re going to have to work together, in close proximity.
But she’s right. It was a long time ago. They’ve both moved on. They are different people now. It really won’t be an issue.
‘So,’ she says, ‘we can keep this on a professional basis, yeah? We work the cases together, and that’s it.’
‘Of course.’
‘Because I really want this job, Cody. I really want to show what I can do at MIT. I don’t want . . . stuff to get in the way.’
‘Absolutely. It’s all good. Honestly.’
Her dimples put in another appearance. ‘Great. Let’s go then.’
She strides off, seemingly recharged by Cody’s words. He follows her onto the driveway, where Blunt is waiting. The DCI leads them down the tunnel between this house and the next. Cody finds himself having to duck to avoid hitting his head, since he’s having to walk on stepping plates that have been put down to help preserve the scene. God knows how Ferguson managed.
They go through a wooden back door in the fence, and onto a patio that’s flagged in alternating pink and beige stones, like a huge piece of Battenberg cake. The rear door to the house is wide open. Beyond the patio is a decent-sized garden. The lawn is in dire need of mowing, and is peppered with weeds. An empty border leads to a stand of bushy shrubs at the far end. Cody notes that somebody could easily hide themselves behind those plants. He knows there is a small park and playground on th
e other side of the rear fence. From here he can see the top of a small hill. A couple of teenagers are standing there, watching. One of them has a can in his hand. Cody bets himself it’s not lemonade.
There are a lot of people here, all jostling for space while trying to avoid contaminating the scene. Some of them are police. Some are CSIs. They used to be called SOCOs – Scene of Crime Officers – but then the television programme arrived and it became more glamorous to be known as CSIs, even though what they do is nothing like that portrayed on the small screen. Systematically and painstakingly they hunt for clues. They sift through the long grass; they photograph; they video; they sketch; they brush; they bag. Busy, busy, busy.
Looming over the body is the pathologist, his presence here another sign of the importance of this case. Pathologists don’t attend all murder scenes – often a police surgeon is deemed sufficient, and then primarily to certify death – but they come out when the case looks like it could be a tricky one.
And this one certainly has all the hallmarks of a crime to exercise minds.
The victim is female. Early thirties, probably. She wears only a dressing gown, belted at the waist. There is a lot of blood here. It has soaked into her gown and formed sticky pools on the flagstones around her. There is a smell of urine and excrement, voided from the body at the point of death. Behind the mumblings of the pathologist comes the constant drone of excited flies, drawn hypnotically to the scene by the unmistakable chemical signals of death and decay.
The investigators take all this in as they jockey for position around the body. But one thing above all others keeps vying for their attention. One thing demands to be seen and discussed and puzzled over. It is undeniably the scene-stealer here.
A bird. A large black bird. Its beak is slightly open as if it’s about to cry out. Its soft, glossy feathers ruffle slightly in the breeze. The eye facing out stares vacantly at the humans surrounding it.
It’s dead. As lifeless as the woman across whose face it lies. Its huge wings have been unfurled and spread across her eyes and cheeks, as if it is embracing her, comforting her, protecting her.
Says Webley, ‘What the frigging hell’s that?’
Says Blunt, ‘I hope that question isn’t indicative of your detective prowess, DC Webley. It’s a bird.’
‘I know. I mean . . . Well, it’s bloody huge. And scary. What the hell’s it doing there?’
‘Well, I don’t think it dropped dead in the sky and just happened to land on her, do you? It’s been placed there. A message of some kind.’
Webley shakes her head in disgust. ‘Gives me the creeps.’
‘I think . . .’ ventures Cody, ‘I think it’s a raven.’
‘Boys’ Book of Birds?’ says Blunt.
‘No, ma’am. Saw some at the Tower of London. Clever rascals, apparently.’
‘This one doesn’t look too clever.’ She turns to the pathologist. ‘Can we shift this thing, Rory?’
Rory Stroud is a big man. Gargantuan. Although a medical practitioner, he seems not to acknowledge the health benefits of dieting. However, his bulk has done nothing to diminish his self-confidence with the opposite sex. To Stroud, any female he encounters is fair game, and rumour has it that he enjoys a reasonable amount of success in that endeavour.
Stroud turns his jowly face on Blunt and beams her a lascivious grin. ‘For you, my dear Stella, anything is possible. Just bear with me for two ticks.’
She nods briskly, and it seems to Cody that she is blushing slightly. Seems to be a day for it.
They wait while Stroud directs the taking of some more photographs. Close-up shots of the head area, with a ruler laid alongside to show scale. When he’s satisfied, he reaches out his blue-gloved hands and begins to lift the bird away.
Cody is the first to react to what’s underneath.
‘Oh, Christ!’
They all see. They see that the victim has no eyes. Not gouged out, exactly, but stabbed into the back of the eye sockets, as if pecked to mush by the bird.
‘Oh, God,’ says Webley. She turns, takes a step away, her hand covering her mouth.
‘Don’t you dare step off the plates,’ warns Blunt. She throws Cody a look that asks him to keep things under control.
Cody moves across to Webley. He lowers his voice so as not to compound her embarrassment.
‘You okay?’
She nods, but her hand is still over her mouth. And it seems to Cody that there are tears forming in her eyes.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry about it. Sometimes they can be pretty bad. I once had—’
‘No,’ she interrupts, removing her hand. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Okay,’ says Cody. He thinks she’s about to make an excuse. Not eating properly or something. Whatever. It’s fine with him.
‘No. It’s not okay. I know her. The victim. I know her. She’s one of us.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘Her name’s Terri. Terri Latham. She’s on the force. She’s a bobby.’
6
So this changes everything. And perhaps it shouldn’t. In an ideal world, perhaps it should make no difference whether the victim was a police officer or a prostitute. Perhaps it should be the case that exactly the same effort would be put into investigating the murder irrespective of the victim’s occupation.
But it does. It does change things. It makes it personal. An attack on a police officer is an attack on all police officers. It’s clear from the way the atmosphere suddenly changes that the assembled investigators have digested the new information and can taste the bile it causes to rise in their throats.
Blunt searches the faces around her. ‘Why wasn’t I told this? Did we know it?’
Nobody owns up. Nobody admits to knowing or not knowing.
‘All right,’ she announces to the throng. ‘We do this by the book, okay? No mistakes. No stone unturned. Bag and tag every blade of grass if you have to. I want the sick bastard who did this.’
‘Boss,’ says Cody.
He is either unheard or ignored.
‘And I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will. This story is going to be big. It’s going to hit the headlines. Everyone will hear how a policewoman was murdered here last night. What I don’t want them to hear is any detail from any of the people at this crime scene. Any leaks, and you will have to answer to me. Got that?’
‘Boss,’ Cody says again.
She rounds on him. ‘What is it?’
He points to the bird, still in the pathologist’s hands.
‘A message.’
‘Yes, I know, Cody. I already said that.’
‘No. On the bird’s foot.’
Everyone leans forward. They peer at the tiny blood-stained scrap of paper wrapped around the bird’s scrawny leg.
‘Open it up,’ says Blunt.
Stroud looks up at her. ‘I’d rather it were done in a lab. I could destroy vital evidence opening it up here.’
Which is a good point, thinks Cody. He watches while Blunt considers this and then reaches a decision.
‘I need to know what it says. Any delay might cost us. Do your best, Rory. If it falls apart, you can blame me.’
Stroud places the bird onto an evidence bag, then takes two pairs of tweezers from his kit. Slowly and carefully, he uses them to pull away the elastic band that holds the message in place. He drops the band into another evidence bag. Then he slips off the message and teases it open with the tweezers.
It contains a single line of printed text:
NEVERMORE
The pathologist reads it aloud.
‘Never more what?’ says Webley.
‘Nevermore,’ says Cody. ‘One word. It means never again.’
‘Okay, so never again what?’
Cody feels a crawling on his skin. He looks at the dead bird, half expecting it to jump up at him and start pecking and clawing at his face.
‘It’s linked to the bird,’ he says.
‘What
do you mean?’
‘“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”’
‘Sorry, Sarge, but I don’t know what you’re saying to me now. What was that first word?’
‘“Quoth”. It means “said”. The raven said nevermore.’
He can see he’s making little sense to Webley, but then Blunt adds a contribution.
‘Edgar Allan Poe.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ says Cody. He turns back to Webley. ‘It’s a famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe. About a man who’s alone at night. He hears a gentle tapping on his door, but when he opens it nobody’s there. Then he hears the tapping again, but it’s at his window this time. He opens it, and a raven comes in. It sits in his study, staring at him, and all it keeps repeating to him is the single word “nevermore”. Drives him batty in the end.’
Webley’s expression is a combination of fascination and fear. She looks down at the dead bird again.
‘They can talk, then?’
‘Yeah. They sound pretty freaky when they do it, too.’
He follows her gaze to the bird. He can sense Webley’s unease. The raven is a bird of folklore and mystery and dark happenings. And it looks the part.
‘What does it all mean?’ she asks.
The response comes from Blunt. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out. Come with me, you two.’
She leads them back down the tunnel. Gets out of earshot of the others.
‘Latham was on the force. Right now we don’t know if that fact is related to her death, or just coincidence. There could be a lot of people out there who might be ecstatic to see her dead. It also means there are going to be hundreds of other coppers who want a piece of whoever did this. If they start walking all over our case, they’ll bugger it up. This stays with us, with MIT, got it? We’re going to solve it, because we’re the only bastards around here who know what they’re doing. But it means working like we’ve never worked before. Forget sleeping. Forget eating. Forget seeing your loved ones. This is your main priority right now. In fact, it’s your only priority. That a problem for either of you?’
A Tapping at My Door: A gripping crime thriller (The DS Nathan Cody series) Page 4
