With a Narrow Blade

by Faith Martin

  Back at Kidlington HQ, a young man dressed in uniform watched as one of the civilian admin workers pushed the mail trolley down the corridor and paused outside the common room. It was mostly deserted and when she went inside to help herself to a quick cup of coffee, he moved carefully and fast, slipping a long, plain brown envelope under a pile of internal mail. He did it without breaking his stride, and once past the trolley, he began to whistle lightly as he crossed a small hall area, and headed for the stairs.

  He was smiling as he headed down towards Records. The blonde baby doll was going to appreciate his latest offering, he was sure.

  Hillary wasn’t all that surprised to find most of her team standing outside Flo’s garden gate. Janine was the first to spot her and the new boy stiffened and turned as she said curtly, ‘Boss.’

  Frank Ross, who was just making his way towards them, drew level and gave Keith Barrington a flat stare.

  ‘I’ve finished the inventory,’ Janine was saying. ‘Someone could have lifted a music centre, there seems to be a space where something like that might have stood. There’s nothing of obvious value left in the house save for the telly. But it could be the old dear was just hard up.’

  ‘Right, Frank. Introduce yourself to the old man next door, Walter Keane. He knew the vic well. Sit with him and coax out a list of Flo Jenkins’ worldly goods, would you? I’ve asked Caroline Weekes to do the same, but I’m not holding out much hope on her.’

  ‘Guv,’ Ross said, not moving. ‘This the new bloke then?’

  Hillary sighed. ‘Keith Barrington, Sergeant Frank Ross.’

  Ross grinned savagely. ‘Better not pop off on me, sunshine. I’m not some nancy pansy city boy. Take a swing for me and I’ll be marching on your goolies before you know what’s hit you.’ It went very quiet.

  Into the silence, Hillary said drily, ‘That’s Sergeant Ross’ way of welcoming you to the team, Keith.’

  Janine snorted a laugh, and Hillary pointed to the house next door. ‘Work, Frank. And don’t …’ before she could say anything more her mobile rang. She sighed heavily and reached for it. ‘DI Greene.’ she snapped, then blinked. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Janine rolled her eyes. ‘Must be Donleavy,’ she whispered sotto voce to Barrington. ‘Our chief super. She never uses that tone when talking to Mel. She and the super are old friends from way back. It was his life she saved when she got her gong.’

  Hillary’s face became tight, making Janine break off the history lesson. ‘Hello, something’s up,’ she muttered.

  ‘I understand that, sir, but I’ve just started a murder investigation. I’ve only been on scene less than four hours …’ She bit the rest off, listened, sighed and said, ‘Yes, sir, I’ll return right away. I’ll be with you in half an hour.’ She listened for a few more seconds, said tersely, ‘Sir,’ and hung up.

  ‘Trouble back home, guv?’ Ross said, just a shade nervously, Barrington thought.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Hillary said dully. ‘Damn. OK, well, Janine, you can oversee everything while I’m gone. Before I scoot off, anything interesting from house-to-house?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t keep, guv,’ Barrington said. Ross didn’t bother to reply. Hillary got into her car, frowning, and headed back to HQ.

  Donleavy’s civilian secretary smiled at her sympathetically as she buzzed her through, and Hillary went into Marcus Donleavy’s office with just a niggling tinge of dread. Getting called back to HQ right at the start of a major inquiry was unusual.

  Donleavy, a silver-haired, silver-eyed man, was today dressed in slate grey, with a mint green tie. He indicated the chair in front of his desk and watched her sit. ‘Hillary. Straight to the point. I’ve got some unpleasant news. I’ve just been informed that Superintendent Jerome Raleigh has been sighted in Malta.’

  Hillary, caught totally unawares, felt her stomach fall through the chair and hit the floor.

  Donleavy watched the colour fade from her face, and nodded briskly. ‘Apparently, a DI from Vice is on holiday over there. He’s not a hundred per cent sure it’s him, but he called his guv’nor for advice, and they’ve called me. As you know, the Raleigh affair is still a bit up in the air.’ Hillary had to smile. That was one way of putting it. ‘Officially, of course, he’s not a wanted man,’ Donleavy carried on curtly. ‘No warrant was ever issued for his arrest, although the inquiry committee set up to investigate the Fletcher shooting might very well want to talk to him. I’m not sure I can sit on this.’

  Hillary sighed grimly. Back in the summer, Luke Fletcher, a drug dealer and suspected murderer, had been shot dead in a joint raid by Vice and her team, lead by Superintendent Raleigh. As a result, some very searching questions had been raised. A side issue was her own shooting, and the award of a medal for bravery. But the real poser had been why Raleigh had done a runner shortly afterwards. For, just as the committee was about to close the case, with no charges pending, Raleigh had just upped and vanished.

  Only Hillary knew for sure why. And the anonymous report she’d written and left on Donleavy’s desk meant that he knew more than he wanted to as well. But not even Donleavy knew the whole story. He knew nothing about Ronnie Greene’s dirty money, for a start. Now, just when it seemed that old ghosts had been laid to rest, one of them might be rising from the dead to bite them in the arse.

  And neither one of them was happy about it.

  ‘Sir,’ Hillary said neutrally, making Donleavy’s lips thin impatiently.

  ‘If it is Raleigh, and the committee wants to interview him, any idea what he’s going to say?’ he barked. He was almost certain that Hillary knew far more than she was saying about Raleigh’s abrupt resignation, but he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to know what it was.

  ‘No sir,’ she said truthfully. ‘But …’ She hesitated, then said carefully, ‘But I doubt he’ll cooperate.’ There were several million reasons why Raleigh wouldn’t be eager to talk to his old buddies at Thames Valley. ‘I don’t think we have much to worry about.’ Surely the wily Raleigh would just disappear again. He was so good at that, after all.

  Marcus Donleavy slowly leaned back in his chair. He’d always rated Hillary Greene. He had trust in her brains and gut instinct, and if she seemed to think there was no danger, it was good enough for him. Well, almost. ‘I have to pass this information on this afternoon,’ he warned her flatly. ‘I’m sitting with the assistant constable on the recruitment committee. As you know, he was in overall command of the inquiry. There’s no way I can keep it back from him.’

  Hillary nodded grimly. Well, if they did pinch Raleigh and make him talk, there was very little she could do about it. And at least, she thought cheerfully as she left Donleavy’s office a few moments later, there was nothing that led back to her. And why the hell should it? She’d done nothing wrong.

  Even so. Raleigh could really drop her in the shit.

  When she got back to the office, Janine was sitting at her desk, hunched over the computer. Hillary caught sight of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Register on her screen as she passed by, so she was probably putting together a profile of their vic.

  As she took a seat, Janine shot her a glance, but one look at Hillary’s closed face told her that she was not about to explain her meeting with the top brass, so she turned back to what she was doing.

  The two women worked separately in silence for half an hour. Then Hillary’s phone rang. ‘DI Greene. Steven, hello. You extracted it?’ She listened carefully to the police surgeon’s description of the murder weapon, making notes in her book as she did so.

  ‘It’s like I thought,’ Steven Partridge said from his desk at the morgue. ‘It’s a long, very narrow, extremely sharp blade, almost certainly foreign in manufacture. Probably meant as a paperknife. The damned thing’s lethal – both edges as sharp as my mother-in-law’s tongue. Can’t see any hallmarks on it, no ‘Made in Spain’ or what have you. It’s on its way to you as I speak.’

  Hillary grunted her thanks, noting the arrival of the
afternoon internal mail. She nodded a vague thanks as the secretary left a pile on her desk, and watched idly as she did the same for Janine. ‘Any chance of bumping her autopsy to the head of the queue, doc?’

  ‘Not much. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  As she hung up, she saw Janine rifle through her mail and then go very still. From where she was sitting, Hillary saw her extract a long brown envelope that was addressed to her in distinctive green ink.

  Janine felt her flesh begin to crawl, and the niggling, now familiar sense of paranoia creep over her. Another one, so soon after the last. She glanced instinctively around, then froze as she saw Hillary Greene watching her. Her face flamed briefly with colour and she shoved the envelope quickly into her In tray, then began to open the rest.

  Hillary picked up the phone, watching Janine thoughtfully as she speed-dialled Frank’s number. ‘Frank, it’s me. You still with Walter Keane? Good, see if he remembers Flo Jenkins having a narrow, sharp paperknife amongst her things. It’s important,’ she added sharply. ‘Thanks.’

  If the killer had brought the weapon with him or her, then they were looking at premeditated murder. And if they could trace the weapon, they had a chance at tracing the killer.

  ‘Janine, I don’t trust this paperknife business to Frank. When you’ve finished, go back and talk to the woman across the street, see if she’s ever seen this paperknife in our victim’s possession. If not, try and get from her the names of people who knew Flo best and ask them about it.’

  Janine sighed heavily. ‘Right, boss, I’ll go now. This lot’ll take a few minutes to print out anyway.’ She slung on her coat and walked to the door. The moment she was gone, Hillary got up and went to her sergeant’s In tray. There she extracted the long brown envelope, and tapped it thoughtfully against her palm.

  Then she carefully opened it.

  chapter four

  * * *

  Hillary slowly pulled the folded piece of white paper out of the envelope, conscience tickling the back of her mind like an old parrot feather. She didn’t make a habit of reading other people’s mail, and when she did, she usually had a signed warrant enabling and entitling her to do so. To read a co-worker’s private correspondence was as far removed from that as it was possible to get. Nevertheless, Hillary was used to relying on her gut. In her job you used everything you had – intelligence, experience, luck, grim determination, the lot. Right now, her instinct was screaming at her that Janine Tyler was in some sort of trouble. And Janine Tyler, until the end of next week at least, was her responsibility.

  Gingerly she turned the piece of paper over and unfolded it. As she did so, it fleetingly occurred to her that she could have read the signals wrong. What if Janine was having an affair? What if she’d been acting like a cat on hot bricks because she was scared Hillary or Mel would find out? What if this was a bloody love letter, for Pete’s sake? Inside, Hillary began to squirm, and before she could talk herself out of it she opened the paper fully out and gave it a quick glance. If it was handwritten, and the salutation read, ‘Darling sugarbabe,’ or something equally appalling, she’d put it back quickly, and would read no further.

  One glance however was enough to put all such thoughts right of out her head. The letter had been printed from a computer, was totally in block capitals, and was about as affectionate as a stick of dynamite.

  Grimly, Hillary read it.

  HELLO BITCH/BLONDE,

  HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ME HAVE YOU? HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE FLOWERS I SENT THE OTHER DAY. DEAD ROSES ARE SO HARD TO FIND NOWADAYS. I HAD TO BUY THEM ALL NEW AND RED AND SUCCULENT AND LEAVE THEM OUT IN THE FROST TO GET THAT PARTICULAR SLIMY BLACK FILM ON THEM.

  SO, THE WEDDING DAY’S GETTING CLOSER HUH? LOOKING FORWARD TO GIVING MALLOW A MELLOW FEELING? OF COURSE, YOU’VE BEEN DOING THAT FOR SOME TIME NOW THOUGH, HAVEN’T YOU? NO OTHER WAY YOU’D GET PROMOTION OTHERWISE. HOPE YOU’VE GOT SOMETHING EXTRA SPECIAL PLANNED FOR YOUR WEDDING NIGHT, OR THE POOR OLD SUPER WILL FEEL DISAPPOINTED.

  BUT DON’T WORRY, I KNOW A WHORE. I ASKED HER FOR SOME TRICKS THAT COULD HELP TEASE A JADED OLD SUPER. SO YOU COULD ALWAYS TRY THIS …

  At this point, the wording became very graphic and descriptive, and Hillary raised her eyebrows as she read the suggestions. ‘Very imaginative,’ she murmured to herself, sitting back down in her chair and placing the paper carefully on her table.

  Reaching into her drawer, she drew out from the very back a dusty red tin case. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it, but it had to have been back in her uniform days out of Headington. She opened it and eyed the fat, soft brushes, the magnifying glass and tin of fingerprint powder and shook her head. Nowadays the lab did all this, and coppers had no need of them. Not even in her young days at the very beginning of her career. But an old sarge had handed it down to her on his retirement, plus a few lessons in how to use it. ‘Never know when it might come in handy,’ he’d said, grinning widely. At the time she’d been too young and naïve to wonder what he’d been on about. She’d kept it more for sentimental reasons than anything else. Now she blessed his foresight.

  Feeling rusty at this kind of thing, she set tentatively to work, but wasn’t really surprised to find, a few minutes later, that the paper was clean of all dabs, save her own. Whoever their boy was, he knew enough to wear gloves. Which was hardly surprising.

  Because it had to be one of their own.

  The envelope, she’d noticed, had no stamp, which meant it was generated internally. Now there were all sorts of civilians who worked out of HQ of course, from admin staff, to canteen workers, cleaners, not to mention the contracted help – window cleaners, sewage and drainage experts, hell, even the man who came and mended the office equipment, or delivered the water bottles used in the public areas. But how would any of them know how the internal mail was delivered? Answer, they wouldn’t.

  No, this had bluebottle written all over it. Whoever had written it had made no attempt to misspell it or be other than fairly grammatically correct. And there was no mistaking the frustrated venom over that crack about Janine not being able to get promotion except by sleeping with the boss.

  She’d bet a month’s salary that this had been written by some Jack-the-lad in uniform, who spent his nights fantasizing over soft porn, and his days craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the pretty blonde sergeant.

  Hillary sighed and put her ancient finger-printing equipment away, then read the rest of the note, skipping over the graphic bits, which had become boring and repetitious, to the ending.

  THINK YOU’RE SO CLEVER, DON’T YOU BITCH, MARRYING THE BOSS, WEARING CIVVIES, LORDING IT OVER YOUR BETTERS LIKE THE QUEEN BEE. BUT WE ALL KNOW WHAT YOU ARE. AND YOU’LL GET YOURS, WHEN THAT PRETTY BACK OF YOURS IS TURNED.

  I’LL BE WATCHING AND WAITING.

  It was signed, of all things, LOVERBOY.

  Hillary slowly blew all trace evidence of fingerprint dust from it, put it back in the envelope, resealed it and returned it to Janine’s tray. Then she ran a tired hand over her face. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with as it was. Now this. Well, it would have to be nipped in the bud pretty quick. Letting a sick mind like this one run free and getting away with a powerplay was just asking for trouble. No, he’d have to go. And she had a pretty good idea how to go about it.

  She wasn’t surprised that Janine hadn’t confided in her, or taken any steps to make it official. A woman police officer being stalked in her own nick wouldn’t please the brass, and there would inevitably be the immature dicks who would snigger at her behind her back. And with her wedding coming up, the last thing Janine would want was to look weak or in need of ‘hubby’s’ help. No doubt that was what the dirty little bastard who’d written it was relying on. Well, he was in for one nasty surprise!

  Keith Barrington returned to HQ, his stomach rumbling, but decided to give the canteen a miss. Lunch hour was long gone, anyway. Instead he raided the vending machine on the second floor and munched
on a Mars bar on his way up to the main office.

  Only Hillary Greene was at her desk when he peeked through the big glass doors. He waited outside until he’d finished the chocolate, then threw the wrapper in a bin and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand to remove any evidence, walked across to join her.

  Hillary watched him approach, waited until he had sat down, and said briefly, ‘Anything?’

  ‘Guv.’ He opened his notebook and quickly scanned his notes. ‘I’ve got two people who saw someone walk up Mrs Jenkins’ garden path around seven last night. I can’t pin either of them down to more than that. One, the man who lives opposite and two doors down, Mr Lionel Manfred, was leaving for his night shift and saw someone, he thought a young lad, approach the old lady’s door. He was driving past at the time, though and didn’t see our victim open the door to him. Nor did he recall seeing any unusual vehicle parked on the road. His description is vague – it was dark, he wasn’t paying attention. He thought the visitor might have been wearing a cap. Not a big bulking chap, maybe five foot eight or nine. Mr Manfred also thought he might have been carrying something. He had the vague impression of something white being held in his hand, but can’t be sure. Maybe a shopping bag, maybe not.’ He paused, turned the page and nodded.

  ‘The second witness saw more or less the same thing, only he was coming back from work. He saw an average built, youthful figure walking back down the path. He can’t be more specific about time either. Apparently he can get home from work anytime between 6.30 and 7.30 depending on traffic and hold-ups on the motorway. He works in Brum. That’s it.’