“Yes, madam… I’m awfully sorry. I seem to have the wrong number… yes, you can have my name. It’s PC Donoghue. No, I’m sure my sergeant won’t be happy. No, nor my inspector. Yes, I’ll tell him to expect a call from you…”
The wizened apple seemed to get a second wind when she realised I was on the back foot, and let me have it with both barrels. By the time she had finished with me, I felt physically drained. My face was beetroot and my ear was positively glowing!
I hadn’t felt so stupid since the time an old girlfriend had rung me saying that she was bored and was just sat at home watching ‘the fucking Olympics’ on the television. I had immediately raced round to her place only to discover that it was just the regular Olympics.
I gave the phone back to Einstein and he pressed a few buttons before he handed it back to me.
“Never mind about me nan, this is the right number.”
Never mind! NEVER MIND! So speaks a man who doesn’t already have a complaint hanging over his head courtesy of Eileen Crawford for use of excessive force after I stopped her killing herself! However, before I could dwell any further on my predicament, the call was answered.
“Yeah?”
Why don’t people answer the telephone by repeating the number you’ve just dialled like they used to in the old days? It would solve a lot of problems.
“Mr Gwain? This is the police.”
“Fuck the police!”
His response didn’t bode well.
“Look, Mr Gwain, I just need to speak to you about an allegation.”
“Fuck the allegation! I know what you’re on about! All I’m going to say is that today’s a good day to die! It’s me or her…” Then there was just silence. I strained to listen for any background noise that might give some possible clue as to where he was. “OR YOU, COPPER!” I was almost deafened as he bellowed down the line.
“Or me what?” I asked, slightly taken aback by his ominous afterthought.
“Or you are going to fucking die!” He sounded irate that I hadn’t immediately understood his threat. “Do I have to spell it out for you? It’s either: her, me or you that is going to die tonight, hence my initial comment: ‘today’s a good day to die!’”
“It’s just that you seemed to add that bit about me after the killing bit was said,” I explained, so he didn’t think I was entirely stupid.
“Die. Her. Me. You. It’s that simple.” Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.
The line went dead. How very rude! I tried to ring back but his phone was now switched off.
“What did he say?” asked the couple, both now giving me their full attention.
“He’s keeping his options open,” I answered.
This was rapidly turning into a nightmare. There is only one thing worse than an angry male intent on killing someone, and that’s an angry, condescending male intent on killing someone. If he was going to carry out his threat tonight he had to be found – sooner rather than later. Murder rates fluctuate from year to year, but what is fairly constant is the fact that over two-thirds of victims are killed by someone they know. This case was no different but I needed to know who we were looking for. I asked for a picture that I could circulate amongst my colleagues. Unfortunately, Helen had already destroyed all the photos of her husband, but did tell me that he had distinctive red hair and worked in the local bakery, although she had been made aware that he hadn’t turned up for work over the last few days. I made a note that we were looking for the ginger bread man.
She added that he was a big guy and knew how to handle himself. I imagined that he’d have little choice if he was a sex addict and lived on his own.
“So where do you think he is now?” I asked.
“Trying to guess where Tom is, is like trying to predict the weather!” she replied cryptically.
“You know they can actually do that now?” I told her.
“Well, in that case, you could always try the house on the Black Estate,” she conceded. “That’s where he’s renting.” Once she had given me the address, I told her to stay inside, lock all doors and to telephone 999 if he showed up.
“He’ll have to deal with me if he comes round here,” stated Ryan defiantly as I left.
“Ignore him,” called Helen. “He’s a lover not a fighter!” … and besides, no one sounds tough when they have a set of braces on their teeth.
Returning to the station, I updated Barry, picked up Lloyd, and then headed straight to the suspect’s address.
Ten minutes later, we were at the property: a new-build terraced house. Each home had a small garden at the front; small enough that the residents didn’t think it was worth buying a mower to cut the grass, but big enough for it to look overgrown and untidy. The daylight was fading fast so we trod carefully, avoiding the ubiquitous dog turds along the path. The house itself was in darkness. The front door was locked so we went round the back where we found the door slightly ajar. I slowly pushed it open and glanced at Lloyd.
“Well, you said he told you someone was going to die,” he whispered, “so we’d better make sure he’s ok.”
Now we had our reason to enter, I racked my baton and Lloyd got out his can of pepper spray as we tentatively stepped inside. There is something particularly disconcerting about searching a house when you don’t know if anyone is at home; even more so when threats have been made and especially when those threats involve murder. You can never be sure what booby traps might have been set, or who might be hiding in the shadows.
It was freezing inside, suggesting that the heating hadn’t been on for some time. The kitchen seemed unusually bare, too – just a half-eaten carton of Chinese takeaway on the work surface. I prodded it; it looked congealed. We had our first indication of the sort of person we were dealing with when I looked at the microwave: what sort of monster doesn’t clear the unused time down?
I had searched a similar property on my own a few weeks ago after neighbours had reported that the patio door was open. On that occasion, I had got my baton out and started up the stairs, entering each room cautiously, checking for anyone inside. I had made particularly sure to keep a safe distance as I bent down to check under the beds, remembering a colleague in the north of the county who had been conducting a similar search when a hand had shot out and grabbed her ankle, like something straight out of a horror film. She had managed to press the panic button on the radio as she struggled against being dragged underneath, but it took an exhausting seven minutes of frenzied fighting before backup finally arrived.
At least there were two of us checking this place. Having someone with you more than doubles your confidence; even so, we still proceeded with caution. I flicked on the light switch, but it appeared that someone hadn’t topped up the electricity meter. This wasn’t exactly a good start: we would have to search by torchlight.
I’m never too sure whether it’s best to go for the stealth approach, or take the overt route. If we announced our arrival he could prepare himself for a fight, but on the other hand, however, we were in his property uninvited, giving him every excuse to attack us by saying that he thought he was being burgled. I have never really trusted anyone called Tom anyway – they get up to far too much peeping and foolery for my liking. On that basis, we opted for loudly shouting “Police!” to announce our presence. There was no response. The house remained eerily silent. Cautiously, we started to move from room to room.
Downstairs was empty. We came across an occasional empty beer can and discarded pizza box, but otherwise nothing of any note. The whole house just looked like the sort of place where happiness comes to die.
We crept slowly up the stairs, keeping our backs to the wall, alert to any movement as the light from our torches cast awkward shadows in the gloom. Every few steps we stopped to listen out for the slightest sound. Apart from the noise of my own heart beating everything was deathly silent. It’s funny what can spook you when you’re least expecting it. It’s been said that no one has felt true fear until they have been lying
in bed in the middle of the night and a poster has slid off the wall.
At the top of the stairs was the bathroom. Entering, I could see that the bath was full to the brim with water. I dipped my finger in to check the temperature: it was freezing. I started to get goose-bumps. A shiver ran up my spine followed by a flashback to one of those films where someone struggles frantically for breath as their face is pushed under the water.
Next the back bedroom, where the space was bare except for a large wardrobe standing, oddly, in the centre of the room.
“What do you think is in there?” whispered Lloyd.
“It’s Narnia business.”
“What’s none of my business?”
“It was just an inappropriate wardrobe joke…” My apology trailed away to nothing as he shot me a disapproving look.
“Sometimes, John, I seriously wonder how we are friends.”
He was right to be unimpressed. The incident with the grabbing hand under the bed was obviously playing on his mind, too. I think we were both half expecting a homicidal maniac to leap out of the cupboard at any moment. With our hearts thumping, I slowly placed my hand on the door. Then, as Lloyd levelled his spray, I suddenly jerked the door back, pulling it off its hinges in the process. We both rushed forward to stop the whole thing collapsing. Damn flat-pack furniture!
The wardrobe itself was bare except for a couple of blurry photographs lying discarded on the bottom. The snaps were distance shots of Helen Gwain and her toyboy. I didn’t like the way this was going. Evidently, this guy hadn’t seen many psychological thrillers: the photographs are always stuck on a cork board alongside a few press cuttings. I made a mental note to report him to the Deranged Stalkers’ Union.
Finally, we were left with just the two remaining bedrooms; the sooner we finished this search the better. We each chose a door and kicked it open. I quickly entered and scanned the room – nothing except for a mattress on the floor with a worn duvet lumped on top of it. With only the diluted moonlight coming in through the net curtains it was difficult to make out if it was just laundry – or could that possibly be someone hiding underneath? I inched closer and used my baton to prod the pile.
BANG! Just then the door slammed behind me. I spun round to see an angry-looking male, dressed all in black, staring straight at me. He had something in his hand; it glinted as he quickly raised it menacingly above his head. He brought it down towards me at a lightning pace. Instinctively, I let out a cry and did the same. I made hard contact with my baton, vibrations shooting up my arm as it struck. I recoiled, waiting for his blow to strike me hard… but it never came.
Seconds later, there was an almighty smash and I was almost knocked over as Lloyd burst through the door.
“What’s happened?” he demanded breathlessly.
“I think I’ve just killed myself in the mirror,” I replied sheepishly, standing amongst the shattered remains. I had also just discovered that I make exactly the same noise if I think I see a violent male intent on murdering me as I do when I step on a piece of seaweed at the beach when I’m out for a paddle, but I thought I’d best keep that last bit of information to myself.
“You silly Welshman,” muttered Lloyd.
I kicked over the duvet to make sure there was nobody hiding underneath, and satisfied that the house was empty, we returned to the office to report our findings to Barry.
“You two are like a well-oiled machine that someone forgot to oil,” he informed us. “So we don’t have the suspect, but, following your visit, we do have a house with a broken wardrobe and a smashed full-length mirror?”
“That’s about it, Sarge,” we replied.
“But you’re saying that our potential victim takes the threat seriously, and from your phone conversation with him and the photos you’ve seen, it looks as if our suspect means business.” Our sergeant was now fiercely scribbling notes as he spoke. “I’ll get onto the inspector to instigate the full Threats to Life procedure. We won’t be able to get a panic alarm in her place until tomorrow, but from what you’re saying, it looks like he’s intending to make his move tonight. I can get the night shift to do some patrols, but we’ll need more than that. So, do both of you fancy some overtime?”
Overtime: keeping observations on a house at this time of year would mean standing in the freezing cold and drizzle for hours on end, waiting forlornly for something to happen. In this weather, even if we had an unmarked vehicle to plot up in, as the overnight temperature dropped the car would cool and it would become an ice block inside.
“Yeah, we’d love to, Sarge!”
Both Barry and Lloyd looked slightly taken aback by my enthusiastic response – more so Lloyd as he would be the one braving the sub-Arctic temperatures with me, but I had a reason to be so cheerful. As Barry picked up the phone to update our victim, I led Lloyd out of the office and informed him that I had a cunning plan.
“How does the old saying go?” I asked him. Who doesn’t love a rhetorical question? Lloyd, by the look of it, as he stared silently back at me.
“A good cop never gets cold, wet or hungry,” I prompted, filling the awkward void that had quickly developed. “And neither shall we, my friend, neither shall we.”
Anticipating that our potential murderer wouldn’t be caught that easily, I had guessed that there would be some sort of mini operation put in place overnight. I had also assumed that I would somehow be involved. With that in mind, I’d done a bit of forward planning: I had seen that there were some new houses going up on Troy Street, just over the road from our potential victim, and so before going on our abortive manhunt I’d popped in and spoken to the saleswoman in the show home. As a result, I now held in my hand a shiny new key for one of those very same houses.
“Tonight,” I explained, “we shall carry out our covert observations from the comfort of ‘The Hampton: a beautiful three-bedroom starter home, ideal for the aspiring young family’, or, as we shall call it, ‘John and Lloyd’s overtime den’.”
“And”, continued Lloyd as we drove over to the address in an unmarked CID vehicle, “we shall dine in style.” It seems that he had now bought into the whole overtime idea since discovering that we would be warm and cosy all night.
“Every move you make, every step you take, we’ll be watching you! It’s a Sting operation,” I told him. He chose to ignore my last comment. He wasn’t that overjoyed with the whole scenario to enable him to laugh at my rubbish jokes.
“I’m just a boy standing in front of a girl, who’s standing in front of a guy, who’s in front of a family of four.” Lloyd had dropped me off at the supermarket, while he had begun setting up observations at the house. I had phoned to tell him that I was in the checkout queue with our midnight feast, and to ask if he wanted anything else.
“Yep. Get me some fruit – a banana or something.”
I grabbed one and placed it on the conveyor belt along with our selection of pork pies, crisps and pop. As I did so, I heard a cough. Looking up, I saw Helen Gwain and her boyfriend, queuing at the next checkout, glaring over at me.
“I thought you were supposed to be guarding my house,” she mouthed.
“My colleague is there already,” I mouthed back defensively. “And I thought you were supposed to be staying in with all the doors locked.” Touché.
I urged Helen to get back home with her bottle of vodka and twelve-pack of lager as quickly as she could and to then go into lockdown. Meanwhile, I took our rations back to our den.
As I took position at the window, Lloyd started on his banana. I looked over in confusion as he peeled the whole thing before starting to eat it. How bizarre! It was like taking all your clothes off just to use the toilet. I quickly glanced away before he saw me staring at him taking a bite of it. That would just have been too awkward.
An hour in, and our food supplies had already run out. I looked at my watch – it had just turned midnight. All conversation had died, and we now sat in the darkness, staring out of the bedroom window at the
street below. A solitary lamp post illuminated the footpath outside the address.
00:30: I was busy doing the crossword, while Lloyd took his turn at staring out into the darkness. I read the clue out to my colleague: four-letter word ending in UNT, meaning ‘undersized or weak person’. The answer he gave me was not only wrong, but was also probably the reason why he should never be invited to appear on Wheel of Fortune.
01:00: My faith in humanity was restored when I saw four guys pushing a broken-down car along the road. That’s a lovely thing to do I thought, until I realised that it could have been a stolen vehicle. I quickly contacted the night shift to tell them to keep an eye out.
01:30: One of the residents of the street was taking his dog out for its last pee before retiring to bed. We watched as the dog spent an eternity with his leg cocked against the pole, a little stream of steaming liquid running down into the gutter.
“How long did that go on for?” Lloyd asked in amazement.
“You’d think he was going for the Nobel Piss Prize,” I replied.
02:00: Apart from occasional lovers returning from the local nightclub, everything was quiet. We watched the age-old courtship ritual as a couple made their way slowly up the street arm in arm, avoiding the pools of light that acted as makeshift chaperones.
02:30: We watched as the neighbours from three doors along returned home. After four failed attempts at parallel-parking, the male driver abandoned the vehicle half on and half off the kerb. As he and his partner got out of the car, I almost felt like shouting down at him to shave off his beard and give back his wife as he clearly hadn’t earned either.
03:00: As Lloyd returned with two cups of tea, I produced a tin of luxury biscuits from my bag. Well, we were getting paid overtime for this, so I thought we may as well treat ourselves. My delight soon turned to consternation when, a few biscuits later, Lloyd lifted up the top tray to access a biscuit underneath. Frankly, I was shocked! You NEVER start the bottom tray before finishing the top tray! Learn your goddamn bisc-etiquette!
Police, Arrests & Suspects Page 10
