by M. C. Dutton
He went back to the kitchen door and looked to see if there was any sign of a forced entry but there was nothing he could see. Perplexed, his eyes examined the ground around the back of the house and he moved towards a shrub by the fence. He thought he spotted something. There, nestling between the fence and the shrub, was a woman’s shoe. He didn’t remember what shoes Alice wore but this one was an old lady’s shoe with those sturdy little heels and heavy rounded fronts that younger women wouldn’t be seen dead wearing. He searched the undergrowth of shrubs, looking for the other shoe, but it wasn’t to be seen.
For some reason that didn’t make any sense to him at the time he looked over the fence to next door and scanned the garden. It was a mess of weeds, long grass and bits of wood and rubbish. A much neglected garden indeed. At least the 5 foot fence hid the mess from Alice, he thought. He looked close to the fence and there in the next garden was what looked like the other shoe. He hadn’t moved either shoe and made a mental note to get the SOCO to check it out when they arrived.
He looked at his watch. He had been out in the garden for over 30 minutes and he wanted to know where everyone was. He went to the officer on the front door and asked if anyone had arrived yet. He was told no, but a passing police car had stopped with their teas and a couple of buns. A cigarette and a cup of tea sounded good and they both sat outside in the sun, enjoying a few minutes’ rest. The curtains across the road were twitching regularly and Jazz put his hand up in a wave to acknowledge he had seen them. He laughed inwardly as the curtains stopped moving and he envisaged someone mortified at being found out. He balanced the tea on the garden wall and the cigarette in his mouth while he called Sharon and Tony. Tony answered and said that both he and Sharon were available for anything he wanted, so Jazz called them to Wards Road. He needed them to knock on doors and talk to the neighbours. He asked the officer, whose name turned out to be Mike, if he fancied a McDonald’s for lunch. He told Tony to make sure they brought big macs and chips for two and coffees when they arrived. Mike liked this DS, he didn’t know him but he did know that most were not as amenable as this one.
“So where are the fucking SOCO then,” asked Jazz, almost talking to himself, but Mike answered that he didn’t know.
Jazz, on the phone again, told whoever was on the other end at Ilford Police Station to move their arses and get a SOCO here now. “If this turns out to be a murder and the clues are spoilt, it will be on your fucking head!” He wasn’t sure it was a murder at this stage, but Ilford Station didn’t need to know that.
Jazz wanted to know who was next door. He walked out the front and round to the house next door. After knocking for some time, he opened the letterbox and called, “Police, open up.” There was no response. There was a smell that was very familiar and he noticed there had been something covering the back of the front door but it had come away. He couldn’t see in through the letterbox as whatever had been put there was still obstructing the view but when pushed, it moved. This allowed the smell to come out through the letterbox. He knew exactly what that smell was.
He went down the sideway and out the back to see if he could see anything through the kitchen window. The front windows offered nothing. Net curtains maintained a look of normality on the outside but closer inspection showed that it wasn’t the curtains that kept anyone from seeing inside. He was on his mobile again to Ilford, who were getting fed up with his abusive rantings of where was this and where was that. This time he asked for an electrician to be sent to Wards Road immediately. He explained briefly why and he was promised one in 10 minutes.
He knew he should have waited, he needed a search warrant to gain access, but he also knew that time was important. He shouldered the back door and it gave way more easily than he expected. He would be in trouble for this; his DCI would take great delight in quoting police procedure at him later, but he told himself he was doing his job and time was of the essence.
With extreme caution he looked inside; he was reluctant to venture in without closely looking at what could hurt or maim him. There was nothing metal ahead of him that could electrocute him. He looked at the floor to see if there was a booby trap. No carpet hid a spike-filled hole he could fall into. Cautiously he put one foot inside and then the other, constantly checking where he walked and what he touched. He looked above him to ensure there were no spikes ready to drop down on him and spear him. All looked reasonably safe.
The place had been emptied in a hurry. It was a mess of broken plastic bits and wires and, yes, he could see cannabis leaves, not much but enough to see what the house had been used for. He looked in the cupboard under the stairs. The mains electric had been butchered. Jazz could tell they had gone straight for the mains so the electric companies would not know the vast amount of electric that had been used in this house and of course it wasn’t paid for either.
The smell was strong now and he looked inside the front room and saw a few plants in pots. He thought it was skunk; that always smelt stronger and it was worth more money. He asked himself why any plants had been left, it was very odd. He could only assume they were in a hurry, perhaps they were disturbed and just got out. The rest of the room was empty.
His footsteps echoed as he walked carefully from room to room. A cannabis factory in a house always depressed Jazz. It looked sordid and nasty. There was wallpaper on the walls and bits of furniture stacked up in the hallway. Everywhere was filthy. A bit of curtain hung precariously from a rail in the front room. It looked like a house that had been raped and defiled with such cruelty that it seemed impossible for it to recover. The ceilings had many wires hanging down for the lights.
Jazz knew they had cleared as much of the factory as they could. The lights to keep the cannabis warm and growing had gone, but the big air vent that went up into the roof through the ceilings of both the front room and the bedroom upstairs was still there. The house had that forlorn echo as he walked around. The bath upstairs was filled with water and nutriments that had to be fed to the plants. He supposed someone lived here to guard and feed the plants. The settee in the hall looked like the bed with a thin dirty duvet crumpled up in a corner. That made him feel better. No booby traps if someone had lived here.
The few plants that were still in the room looked ready for a crop, the heads were big enough to pick. The smell sickened him. It was a herbal smell with an underlying stench of something like mould which offended his senses. He never understood why anyone wanted to smoke the stuff. If the house was full of plants, as the wiring and dirt on the ground implied, then it would have been worth up to £100,000 per crop and in these conditions the plants would have cropped three times in a year before being replaced. Something made them clear out quickly. It was quite dark and difficult to see. All the windows had blackout cloth nailed to the window frames. The silver-coloured side of the cloth faced inwards to reflect the heat back onto the plants. He opened the front door for some light. He knew he was taking a risk, the lock could have been rigged to electrocute him, it was quite a common thing. Cannabis factories had to be protected from thieves trying to steal the plants and there were all sorts of gruesome and nasty tricks to kill, maim and resist intruders. Jazz reckoned he was OK because it looked like they had someone living here. Most probably a Vietnamese illegal immigrant brought in to do the work. That seemed the usual way of working. They earned good money too. It was reckoned they could earn something up to £1,000 per month for guarding and looking after the plants. Not bad money but to live with the smell and intoxication was either a bonus or a curse, depending on if you used the stuff.
Now the door was open, the light streamed into the hall. Jazz wanted to see if there was anything around that might give a clue to who these people were. It was highly unlikely, these factories were well organised, but someone sometimes slipped up. His attention was taken by a glistening by the stairs outside the front room door. He went over and looked closely. He thought it was blood but it was dry; he thought it might be bits of bone and gristle. It h
ad splayed up the side of the stairs and was sprinkled over quite an area of the stairs in little droplets. As if someone has been smashed across the head, he thought. Could there be a connection, he wondered. He needed to get out of the house. SOCO needed to get in after the electrician and sort this out.
God he needed some fresh air, a cigarette and a drink. He took a good swig of his flask. He needed it today to relax and calm down. What started off as a fatal accident was becoming more of a riddle and getting bigger by the minute. He wanted a meaty job but this felt very close to home. He needed some fresh insight and the SOCO team should provide that.
SOCO would work out whose blood, brains and bone was splattered in the hall. He needed the bloody SOCO team here now and God help anyone who didn’t move themselves in this case. He was getting angry now. It was 1 p.m. and this was not moving fast enough for him. He got on the phone to blast someone at the station and told them to put a rocket under the arse of the sodding SOCO team; and where was the bloody doctor! The response from Ilford Station was just as ripe in reply and he was told in no uncertain terms to open his eyes and look. The SOCO team was there.
He left and went back to Alice’s house and found that the two SOCOs had arrived and were talking to Mike at the door. They looked up as Jazz, still walking towards them, was shouting instructions.
“First of all, deal with Alice and take prints off the milk bottles and all around.”
When the electrician had made safe next door, the work would begin in there. Glad that someone had arrived, Jazz cheered up and patted a surprised Mike on the back for doing a sterling job. About the same time, Tony and Sharon arrived with the much needed McDonald’s.
Jazz, Sharon and Tony sat in the front garden on the garden wall and Mike sat on the front step eating the warm McDonald’s and soggy chips.
“How long have you had these in your car,” asked Jazz, a connoisseur of McDonald’s. “They have to be hot to taste of anything otherwise it’s cardboard.”
No one answered and for five minutes all was silent as the four of them ploughed through the meal.
With still a mouthful to finish, Jazz began filling Sharon and Tony in about Alice and next door and asking if they thought it could be linked in any way. He wanted them to make house to house calls to find out if anyone saw anything at all, starting with the curtain-twitcher across the road. The doctor arrived just as Tony and Sharon took themselves off to start the house to house questioning.
Jazz showed the doctor into the house, but the SOCO team shouted for them to wait for five minutes so they could finish what they were doing in the front room. Jazz took the doctor outside and offered him a cigarette. They knew each other well and they took to discussing what Jazz had been up to over the years and the latest update on the test match in India. Just as they started to argue over the bowler in the second test match, they got a call from the SOCO team. Jenny and John were their names.
Jenny had been around for many years and was near retirement but John was new and had never met Jazz before. Jenny was a short stocky woman with a large mole on her chin. The pony tail was scraped up on her head as a tired nuisance to be kept out of her way. She hadn’t changed at all, still a mess and still lacking any charm, but she knew her job. He liked her. She had known Jazz many years. She heard he had returned and had looked forward to seeing him again. He would never know that of course. She gave him a grunt instead of hello and proceeded to tell him they had dusted for fingerprints on the milk bottles. Jenny told him that most were smudged but she had got one good one and she hoped it wasn’t his! She berated his way of working and said she had more fingerprints for Jazz at murder and crime scenes than anyone else. Jazz laughed, this was typical Jenny, not here for five minutes before the moaning started.
“I wore gloves, Jenny. See, still on.” He waved his hands in front of her.
She collected up her stuff, still moaning under her breath that she bet the gloves went on as a second thought after he touched everything. She was actually right, he needed to be more careful but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
The doctor went in to take a look at Alice. He thought she had been dead for at least three days, if not longer. Jazz could have told him that but the doctor was always cautious about diagnosis until the post mortem. The flies had started gathering in the front room and Jazz found it all too much. The front door had been left open for much of today and it was getting nasty in there. It wouldn’t be long before Alice got maggots and he didn’t want her to have that indignity. The doctor pronounced the body could now be moved and the mortuary van was sent for.
“I am going to cover her with a blanket now, she has lain here too long without a cover.” The doctor looked at Jazz inquisitively. He never talked like this. “Do you know this woman?” he asked.
Jazz lied. He couldn’t admit to knowing her because he would have been taken off the case. “She’s an old dear and deserves some respect,” was all he said.
The flies were shooed away. He would get a blanket soon, but he had heard the electrician had arrived and he needed to see him.
Everyone was outside. The smell was not pleasant. The electrician had gone into the house next door to make sure it was safe for the SOCOs to do their job. Everyone waited outside. It took about 20 minutes. They wiled away the time chatting and Jazz, on good form, was joking and telling whoever was listening about cases he had in Manchester, the scraps he had got into there and how he got out of them.
The electrician left after telling Jazz that the house was now safe.
“Bloody hell! Wasn’t it safe before?”
The electrician, feeling quite chatty, told Jazz, “If you had touched anything under those stairs you would have become crispy fried duck before you could have said whats this wire for? All the wiring was live.” With more faith in Jazz’s professionalism than he deserved, he added, “Don’t suppose you would have been stupid enough to go in until I arrived anyway.” He was thanked for his help and sent on his way.
“So, where to next?” was Jenny’s question as she picked up her bag.
Jazz took her next door and asked her to start in the hall. He showed her the splashes of blood and bone and gristle. She looked in all the rooms upstairs. Jazz said he wanted everywhere fingerprinted.
“I suppose I am going to find your fingerprints over everything as well,” she lamented.
“Darling, I have been a good boy and you will find nothing of me in here.”
Her colleague, John, followed on behind as the playful banter continued around the house. Jazz pointed out various areas he wanted looked at. She gave him one of her I do know what needs to be done around here looks. He asked her to check outside in the back garden. He needed pictures taken of where the shoes were as well. He ignored her moaning that she was just one woman and could only do so much in a day. She instructed John to go and measure the cannabis plants; they would need cataloguing before they were taken away. She was going to get samples of the splattered blood and remains before anyone contaminated the scene. That comment was directed straight at Jazz.
He left them both to get on with their job. He wanted to go back to Alice and make sure she was covered. He went upstairs and took the quilt off her bed. He looked at her bed and wondered if people nowadays still used sheets and blankets on beds with a quilt on top. He hadn’t seen a bed made like this for years. She had crisp white cotton sheets and two blankets, one green and the other a gruesome orange, both in that thick wool material. The quilt was a silky material and had small flowers all over it with a cream background. It was quite flat; obviously the plumpness had been lost after so many years of use.
He gently covered her with the quilt Her feet protruded out of the end but her face and body were covered. Everyone was busy for the moment and Jazz kneeled alongside the body and took the last swig out of the flask.
“Here’s to you, Alice. If this turns out to be anything to do with next door, I promise you I will get the bastards.”
Again, the emotion welled up and he wiped the tear ready to spill down his cheek. It started an onslaught of tears he couldn’t stop. Alice, his mum and his dad all came to mind and the grief he had not allowed himself to feel over the years just crept up on him and overtook him. It didn’t last long. God this was not the place to break down. He made sure he calmed down and sorted himself out quickly. What he didn’t know was that Tony had been watching for a few seconds through the gap in the door. He beat a hasty retreat and allowed Jazz a few moments of privacy.
The mortuary van arrived and took Alice away. Jazz, with a deep breath, looked at his watch. It was nearly fucking 4 p.m. and there was still so much to do. He went looking for Sharon and Tony to find out what was happening. Tony was outside talking to Mike. Apparently the curtain-twitcher was not well and had the day off work. It seemed that most of the people in the street were working. The twitcher didn’t even know Alice because she was away most weekends and she worked in the week. Tony asked if they could have overtime and work the evening when people came home. This was agreed. Sharon was in deep conversation with some woman down the road who saw nothing and knew nothing but she was telling Sharon about the noise at night from cars that had their radios on very loud. Sharon was finding it hard to get away. Jazz smirked. Perhaps she was not as tough as he thought.
Jenny was still moaning when he visited next door but she had got samples of the blood and bone. He asked if it could be sent for analysis immediately. He needed to know if it could have been Alice who was in the house. It seemed too much of a coincidence, but he knew that coincidences did happen so didn’t want to jump to conclusions yet. John was outside photographing the shoes and measuring where they were in relation to the fence, as instructed by Jenny. She got up from dusting for fingerprints and went out to the front garden where Jazz stood. She needed a cigarette. He offered her one and again asked about sending off the samples and gave her his best smile. Ruefully, she said she would make a phone call. It was agreed that the samples would be collected within half an hour and he would know in the morning. He thanked her and kissed her hand. She screamed at him that he was a bloody idiot and she would have to change her plastic gloves now. He pretended to spit out and choke and cough at the thought of what he had kissed. She thought, as he walked away, what a bloody pain in the neck he was, but she liked him and he was good to look at too. With a resigned sigh, she went back to work. The light would be good for another hour or so and there was still lots to do. She walked back into the house shouting for John to move himself and give her a hand.
