Born in a Burial Gown

by Mike Craven

  Fluke looked up sharply.

  ‘I’m the one who kept you off it. There was no way I was letting you near a multi-force investigation. Not with your attitude. I told Cameron to keep you in reserve and to let you manage anything that cropped up in the meantime,’ the Chief continued.

  Fluke said nothing.

  The Chief stared at him for long enough to make him feel uncomfortable. ‘Look, you two are going to have to find a way of working together. This week, FMIT has closed an armed robbery that spanned four force areas and now it looks like they’ve brought as much closure to these two murders as we’re likely to get. You think Cameron doesn’t deserve any credit for that?’

  As far as Fluke was concerned, the only thing Chambers should take credit for was keeping out of his way. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘“Yes, sir,”’ the Chief mimicked. ‘Fuck off, Avison. I know you think he’s a prick.’

  Fluke decided the best policy would be to stare slightly above the Chief’s hairline and say nothing.

  The Chief appeared wise to that tactic. ‘I’m telling you that Cameron is a good manager. Yes, he’s a bit pompous. Yes, he likes the cameras and the sound of his voice a bit too much. But he knows how to get the best out of his officers and this week he’s closed two major cases. And you, Avison, are not an easy man to manage.’

  Fluke was about to protest but the Chief stopped him.

  ‘Don’t argue, Avison. You came out of hospital with a chip on your shoulder the size of Helvellyn. You should have heard the way you were speaking to people. You had some sort of PTSD, you must have. You’ve always had an antiauthoritarian streak but for the last few months you’ve been taking the piss, quite frankly. You know why you’ve not been in trouble?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Guess.’ He’d stopped smiling.

  As far as he knew, he had no friends in the ACPO ranks. ‘You stepped in, sir?’ he said after a pause.

  ‘You’re the most intelligent man in any room you’re in, Avison, but sometimes you’re also the stupidest. No, it wasn’t me who stepped in. I wouldn’t interfere in the chain of command like that. It was Cameron. He knows your worth to FMIT. He knows only you can manage that team of oddballs you seem to like working with. Time and time again, he fends off other departments. Fenton complains at least once a month about the way you speak to him. Don Holland put in a complaint last week, said you humiliated him at the deposition site.’

  Fluke snorted. ‘Holland. The man couldn’t find his arse with both hands,’ he said, before adding a ‘sir’ on the end.

  ‘Yes, I know he’d messed up the cordons, and Cameron told him if he proceeded with his complaint he’d be on a capability by the end of the day, so he dropped it. But the point is every time they go to Cameron he bats it back. Tells them to get off your back and let you do what you do best.’

  Again, Fluke said nothing.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Here have a read of this.’ He thrust a report under Fluke’s nose. ‘Read the top section, I’ve highlighted the relevant part.’

  It was Chambers’s daily briefing to SMT. It was dated the previous Friday.

  The double murder case is progressing faster than could reasonably be expected. DI Fluke has being doing a remarkable job and has developed lines of enquiry, that, in my opinion, will close this case. As discussed with Chief Constable Jackson, DI Fluke is being left to work this case with minimal oversight as this way achieves optimum results with this officer. He has total control of his team, sufficient resources and I have no doubt he will make an arrest within acceptable timescales.

  Fluke didn’t know what to say. He felt himself flushing.

  ‘Embarrassed? You should be. The way you speak to him sometimes,’ the Chief said. ‘He’s a good man, essentially. I know you think he’s an idiot but he’s the one who convinced me to let you run that team of yours. He’s the one who’s making your life tolerable. Anyone else wouldn’t have you as SIO. You’d be exhibits officer or something. How long do you think you’d last doing that?’

  ‘Not long, sir,’ Fluke admitted.

  His tone softened. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. The three of us will sit down after this is all over and talk it through.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Fluke got up and offered his hand. The Chief remained seating.

  ‘I’m sorry, Avison. That wasn’t why I came to see you.’

  Fluke sat back down. The Chief’s expression was serious. It could only mean one thing.

  Fenton.

  Fluke refused his federation rep so the Chief insisted Chambers sit in with him. Fenton was preening. If he’d been a cat, he’d have purred. He had a sergeant from Professional Standards with him. Someone to carry his briefcase.

  ‘Can we get on with this please, Alex?’ Chambers said.

  He didn’t look happy, Fluke noticed. The Chief’s words were still reverberating round his head, and he was seeing Chambers in a different light. It was clear he was getting no satisfaction from this.

  Fenton pressed record on the digital interview camera and spoke into the table microphone. ‘DSI Alex Fenton interviewing DI Fluke on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. DI Fluke is not under arrest but this interview is being conducted under caution. You have waived your right to representation, is this correct?’

  Fluke said nothing.

  Fenton looked at him but couldn’t hold eye contact for very long. Eventually, Chambers saved him.

  ‘Let’s just get this over with, Avison, can we? I’m sure we all have real work to do.’

  Fluke nodded.

  ‘For the record, DI Fluke has nodded,’ Fenton said.

  ‘We’re on video, you idiot!’ Fluke snapped.

  Ignoring him, Fenton got out a file. He removed the letter Fluke had forged and put it on the table. ‘Have you seen this letter before, DI Fluke?’

  As Chambers craned his neck to read it, Fluke said, ‘No comment.’

  ‘You must have seen it, Fluke. It was CC’d to your address.’

  ‘No comment.’

  At that point, Chambers seemed to lose patience. ‘Look, Alex, I know you have a job to do but can we have some context here. This investigation has come from nowhere as far as I’m concerned, and if you’re going to interview one of my men, you’re going to have spell it out for me.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Tuesday, someone from PSD happened to be at the Cumberland Infirmary visiting a relative and observed DI Fluke in the oncology ward. He appeared to be having a blood transfusion. He was about to make himself known to DI Fluke when Fluke’s mobile phone rang. I believe it was a call from you, sir, and was in relation to the body found in West Cumbria. My man clearly heard DI Fluke say that he was at home. On that basis, I opened a file on DI Fluke on suspicion of lying to a superior officer. I accessed his personnel record and found the letter from Doctor Leah Cooper stating that DI Fluke was fit to return to duty. This is a copy here, sir.’ He handed it over to Chambers who glanced at it.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it. So what?’

  ‘I asked Occ Health for their copy, sir, and they sent it to me. It was exactly the same.’

  ‘I’m not following you, Alex,’ Chambers said.

  Fluke grimaced. Wait for it, it’s coming. Fenton may not be a good detective but he had a sixth sense for officers in trouble.

  ‘The thing is, sir, this letter was unsolicited. Normally HR ask Occ Health to request medical reports. This one just turned up. I showed a letter to Doctor Cooper and in my opinion it was the first time she’d seen it.’

  ‘I see. Avison?’

  Fluke breathed out slowly. Time to come clean. It was a shame as he was sure he could’ve closed the case given a few more days. It didn’t look like he was going to get the chance. He could try and bluff it but that wasn’t going to be a winning strategy and it also risked getting Leah into trouble. ‘Last year—’

  He was interrupted by a loud and urgent knock on the interview room door. Towler walked in without bei
ng bidden. He bent down and whispered something into Chambers’ ear.

  He looked up and then across at Fluke. ‘We’re going to have to stop this for a couple of minutes, Alex,’ Chambers said.

  ‘But, sir,’ Fenton protested. ‘Fluke was just about to admit everyth—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alex. Please stop the tape.’ He left the room with Towler.

  Nearly ten minutes passed. Ten minutes of Fenton pretending to read his notes, doing everything he could to avoid looking at Fluke.

  When Chambers returned, he wasn’t alone.

  There was a woman with him. She was carrying a brown leather satchel-type briefcase. She was also wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans and had a helmet tucked under her arm. When she turned to face Fluke, he stifled a gasp.

  It was the woman Fluke had met at the dinner party. The woman who’d given him a lift home.

  ‘Hello, I’m Bridie Harper-Tarr, Mr Fluke’s solicitor,’ she said to a bewildered-looking Fenton.

  Not half as bewildered as I am, mate, Fluke thought.

  ‘DI Fluke’s waived his right to representation,’ Fenton said weakly.

  ‘Actually, Alex, he hasn’t,’ Chambers said.

  Fenton protested. Fluke said nothing. He knew he had. He’d nodded and it was on video, as he’d pointed out to everyone earlier.

  Chambers seemed to have been paying closer attention to chain of events than either Fluke or Fenton. ‘When DI Fluke nodded earlier it was in response to my question about us all having better things to do. He hasn’t actually answered your question yet,’ he said. ‘Is this correct, Avison?’

  Lost, Fluke decided the best thing to do was agree. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘He can’t have a civilian solicitor without prior notice,’ Fenton said.

  ‘I’m allowing it, Alex. Miss Harper-Tarr has information that should clear all this up as it happens. Not only is she a solicitor, she’s also a friend of Doctor Cooper. Miss Harper-Tarr, over to you.’ Chambers said it with such assertiveness that everyone sat back down and waited.

  Fluke consciously checked his mouth wasn’t hanging open. He had no idea what was happening. By the look of things, neither did Fenton. Fluke was also impressed with the new assertive Chambers. He was beginning to see what the Chief had been talking about.

  Bridie Harper-Tarr cleared her throat and reached into her briefcase. As she did, her sleeve rode up and Fluke could see that the lower part of her arm was heavily tattooed.

  She put a document on the table, turned it the right way round, and slid it to Fenton. ‘Doctor Cooper wanted you to have this, Mr Fenton. She was too busy to come herself and she said she’d rather not see you again in any case. She said you were quite aggressive when you came to her office.’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ Fenton blurted out.

  ‘Regardless. She may put in a complaint later on today. She may not. It depends what happens here, I suppose. What you have in front of you is a hospital printout of the letter Doctor Cooper sent to the police’s Occupational Health department. You have the original, of course. Is this the letter you asked for?’

  Fenton said nothing as he read it. He put it down and got out the original, and put them side-by-side. For a full minute, he studied them.

  ‘Why didn’t she tell me she had it?’ he said. There was a whine creeping into his voice.

  ‘Doctor Cooper doesn’t work for you, Mr Fenton.’

  ‘But she’s legally obliged to assist the police in their investigations in a timely manner,’ Fenton said pompously, not ready to give up just yet.

  Bridie Harper-Tarr smiled at him. It was the smile a shark gives a seal that’s found itself too far from the ice. ‘Mr Fenton, I worked at the UN for six years. I’ve represented countries. Do you really want to challenge me on the law? On medical ethics?’

  By the looks of things, he didn’t.

  Chambers clearly decided enough was enough. ‘Alex? Are we good here?’

  Still Fenton said nothing as he desperately tried to find a discrepancy between the two documents. Fluke held his breath, mystified.

  Chambers raised his voice. ‘Alex. I said, are we good here?’

  Fenton conceded defeat. ‘It seems fine, sir.’

  Fluke doubted he’d ever heard anyone sound so miserable.

  ‘Do you have any more questions for DI Fluke?’ Chambers asked.

  Fenton looked at Fluke with genuine hatred in his eyes, and he knew he’d made an enemy for life. Fenton was renowned for holding grudges over the smallest things, and this one wasn’t small. He’d had Fluke dead in the water, a clear disciplinary offence, with in all likelihood, criminal charges to follow. Taking down a detective inspector would have been a massive feather in his cap and now he had nothing. Worse than nothing. He’d been made to look stupid. Stupid and impotent.

  ‘Not at this time, sir, although I reserve the right to re-interview him if the need arises.’

  Everyone in the room knew it was a last effort at saving his dignity. Even the sergeant with him winced in embarrassment.

  ‘All right then, time for you to go and shuffle some paperwork, Alex. Let Avison here get on with his job. What do you say, Alex?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Fenton got up to leave. He was trying not to catch anyone’s eye. As he walked to the door, Chambers stopped him.

  ‘Oh, and Alex, can I have a written apology to DI Fluke on my desk within the hour, please?’

  For a moment, Fluke thought Fenton was going to refuse. That Chambers had pushed him that one step too far. Eventually, he nodded, gave Fluke and Bridie one last spiteful look then left.

  Chambers stood up as soon as the door shut. ‘That was rather fun, I thought,’ he said. He offered his hand to Fluke.

  Fluke stood up and shook it.

  ‘I’m a ridiculous figure sometimes, Avison, I’m fully aware of that. But know this, I’ve always liked you a lot more than you think. Now, orders from the Chief. You’re on leave for the rest of the week,’ he said. ‘No arguments. Towler’s more than capable of coordinating what needs to happen now. Cross is out the country. Let someone else deal with him. You’ve come closer to catching him than at least three different intelligent agencies. You should be proud of what your team’s achieved.’

  At a loss for something to say, he mumbled a weak ‘thank you’.

  ‘Miss Harper-Tarr, it’s been a genuine pleasure,’ Chambers said, and with that, he left.

  Fluke was left alone with Bridie. She busied herself with putting various papers back in her briefcase. When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything, he couldn’t contain himself. ‘What the fuck’s just happened?’

  She looked up from what she was doing, smiled and said, ‘I think you owe me a drink, Mr Fluke.’

  Chapter 37

  Fluke had a few things to tie up at Carleton Hall before he could get away. Once he’d composed himself, he went to see Chambers to apologise.

  ‘I can’t promise not to wind you up in the future, Avison,’ he’d said. ‘I want to be Chief one day and you don’t. Sometimes we’re going to see things differently.’

  They were never going to be friends but it seemed there was at least the early form of a truce on the table.

  He’d agreed to meet Bridie at a small pub they both knew in the small village of Threlkeld, just outside Keswick. She needed to go to her office first to drop off some files, and as they were travelling separately anyway, Fluke decided to just head off.

  With the forged letter half resolved – he still had to see Leah – he felt as if he could relax for the first time in over a year. If it wasn’t for the looming threat of eviction, he might have actually smiled.

  He left his phone on in case his team needed to get hold of him but the investigation was about to go global. FMIT’s part was effectively over. Towler would liaise with Interpol and make the arrangements. As soon as the intelligence community took an interest, a small rural force like Cumbria got pushed to the sidelines.

 
It was four o’clock when he arrived at the Fox and Pheasant, too late for lunch but he could do with a decent coffee. He walked in and found a quiet table in the lounge bar. A waitress peered out of the kitchen and saw Fluke. She walked over and he ordered an Americano, black.

  While he waited for his drink, he ran through the brief conversation he’d had with Bridie back at Durranhill. He’d asked her how she had a copy of his letter when the only hard drive it was on was back in his log cabin. She’d told him to ask Towler.

  He had.

  Towler, it transpired, had been contacted by Leah Cooper who’d told him everything. She’d wanted to help. Towler had given Jiao-long Fluke’s spare key and asked him to hack into his desktop computer. That was what he’d been doing when Skelton was telling Fluke about how they got the warrants for the hospital. It had taken Jiao-long less than two minutes to find the right file and email it to Leah. With the right text, it was a simple case of printing off an identical copy of the letter.

  He’d deal with Towler and Jiao-long when he came back from leave, although in truth, he wasn’t angry with them.

  Fluke had asked Bridie about Michelle’s dinner party. It was obvious she hadn’t been there by accident.

  Bridie had explained Leah had been doing some matchmaking for her oldest friend who was sick of going out with boring men, and decided Fluke could just be the right man. The mysterious detective who lived alone in a wood. She’d told Bridie that he was at the wrong end of a failing relationship and that she should engineer a way of meeting him to see what she thought. As luck would have it, a solicitor she knew from court, a lecherous man in his fifties, had been invited to the infamous dinner party. He couldn’t believe his luck when Bridie had asked to go with him. Although she’d driven them there, after the party ended, she’d told him to walk home. She wanted to give Fluke a lift. She’d enjoyed his brief company and decided she wanted to see him again. She had intended to wait until the investigation was over but Leah had called and told her Fluke was in trouble. They hadn’t had long to come up with a plan, and in the end, they’d called Towler for help with the letter, as she’d already explained.