Never Dead

by Wonny Lea

  ‘The paramedics were still there but had focused their attention on an old lady, a Mrs Hilda Wiseman, who was distraught because the man had died close by her. Her daughter had arrived a few minutes before us and we all thought we were about to have a second body on our hands.’

  PC Mullen spoke from her seat. ‘Fortunately, the other woman who stayed when the train stopped, Ellie Bevan, was brilliant in pacifying the old lady.’

  ‘As I understand it Mrs Wiseman wasn’t interviewed and left the scene fairly quickly, to be taken to her daughter’s home in Canton,’ Matt said. ‘I’d like DC Cook-Watts to visit her there as soon as we’ve finished this session.’

  Helen nodded and Davies continued. ‘At the time everyone, including the paramedics, was under the impression that the man had had a heart attack or a stroke – no one suspected murder. We’ve obviously heard since that this is a murder investigation but I for one have no idea how he was killed. There was no sign of a struggle – no blood – nothing to make us suspect foul play.’

  ‘I’ll come on to that in a moment,’ said Matt. ‘Would you just describe the situation that arose when you tried to discover the identity of the dead man?’

  ‘Sure. He was a well-dressed gentleman, the sort who would carry a nice wallet, but there wasn’t one. There was nothing in his pockets to help us determine who he was. He had a train ticket from Treorchy, and he may have driven to that station because there was a set of car keys in his jacket pocket. It was Carol who discovered the photograph so I’ll let her tell you about that.’

  Carol Mullen got to her feet. ‘It was tucked into the small outside pocket on his jacket and folded in half. When I opened it up I didn’t realise Ellie Bevan was standing next to me, and I certainly wasn’t anticipating her reaction. PC Davies was quite shocked. She’d been as cool as a cucumber up to that point and a great help with the old lady. However she freaked out when she saw the photograph and I only just stopped her snatching it from me. She wasn’t making much sense but that was when DS Matthews arrived, quickly followed by you, and we handed over.’

  Matt nodded and held up the photograph, now in an evidence bag, and then picked up another evidence bag that contained an identical item.

  ‘This was the reason for her distress. It seemed highly unlikely that the tale she told us about having a matching one at home would check out – but it did. These two photographs are identical, but on the back of the one we found on the body is written the word “Lizzie”. When we took Ellie home she produced the other one and on the back of her copy is written the word “Harriet”.’

  There was a general buzz of conversation, and some puzzlement. DS Shaw got to her feet.

  ‘Has any other connection had been made between the victim and Ellie Bevan?’

  Matt realised that he had forgotten to introduce Shaw to the full team and did so before responding to her question. ‘At the moment the only person we have interviewed is Ellie Bevan, and she swears the first time she saw the dead man was last Monday. Apparently he was on the train every morning last week but she’d never seen him before that. She didn’t speak to him, although she said she’d noticed him looking at her on several occasions. I suggested that his staring must have made her feel uncomfortable, but she said it wasn’t like that, he seemed like a kind and gentle man but that his eyes were sad.

  ‘When we spoke to Ellie we weren’t of the opinion that the man had been murdered, so I need to get her to think harder about that train journey. Did she notice anything suspicious – anything different to the norm? Were all the other passengers regular users of that service or did she notice any strangers? She’s going to be a key witness.’

  ‘Unless she’s our killer!’ suggested Maggie Shaw.

  Matt nodded. ‘Not out of the question, of course, but I go back to what I said earlier – if you had just killed someone would you bring attention to a possible connection between you and your victim?’

  Carol Mullen felt the need to emphasise what she had previously said. ‘Ellie Bevan was genuinely shocked when I unfolded that photograph. Up to that point she had been incredibly composed given that her usually routine journey to work had conjured up a dead body. As I said, she was brilliant with Mrs Wiseman but she really flipped when she saw that photo.’

  Matt looked around at his first case team and suddenly felt about ten feet tall. He took control of the meeting and ensured that everyone knew what was required of them.

  Helen Cook-Watts had already linked up with Carol Mullen and the two women headed for Canton to interview Hilda Wiseman. It was Helen’s turn to feel important as she sat alongside her uniformed colleague. This was the first time she had been asked to play a part in an investigation without a senior officers being in attendance. Helen was still new to CID, but her compassionate and no-nonsense approach to the job was already being noticed. She was the ideal person to interview the old lady, and although Matt had mentally ruled Mrs Wiseman out as a suspect, it was possible she had noticed something that would help with the case.

  Carol slowed the car down as they turned into a street of large terraced properties. ‘These houses are huge, although most of them have been converted into flats. My cousin studied at Cardiff University a few years ago and had a bedsit in one of them – talk about getting a quart into a pint pot! I’m sure she said there were fifteen bedrooms in that one house alone. The architects would turn in their graves if they knew how their desirable gentlemen’s residences were being used today.’

  Helen smiled. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but how many ordinary families nowadays could afford the upkeep of these houses as just a family home?’

  ‘Well I couldn’t on my pay, that’s for sure! But it sounds as if Mrs Fisher does live in one that hasn’t been converted. She gave me directions for parking at the rear of the property and I think that’s the blue fence she mentioned so I’ll just pull up next to that Volvo.’

  Carol brought the squad car to a halt and quickly made the introductions, as even before the two women were out of their seats they were greeted by Gloria Fisher.

  ‘How is your mother?’ asked Helen.

  ‘Well, as you can imagine, the incident was one hell of a shock for her. I really did think it was Mum who had caused the commotion – first of all I thought she was dead and then that she must have had a stroke or something. That was before I saw that poor man lying across the seat and I’m ashamed to say I thought, thank God it’s not Mum.’

  As she spoke Gloria Fisher ushered her visitors along the edge of a beautifully laid out garden and through what Helen thought was more like a front door than a back door. It was almost as if Mrs Fisher had read the young detective’s mind.

  ‘We’ve turned the house back to front and hardly ever use the original front door because it opens out onto the road and many of the houses have paved over their fronts for parking. It’s mayhem out there sometimes but this way we have restored some of the original calm to the house.’

  Helen nodded. ‘It’s a brilliant idea. It works, and just walking through that garden is almost like going back to a more gentle time.’

  ‘My mother’s through here,’ said Mrs Fisher, leading the way through a formal dining room and a fabulous family kitchen, then doubling back into a small lounge. ‘We had this part of the house converted into a flatlet for her but so far she’s not been persuaded to leave the community she loves in Treorchy. She comes here a couple of days each week but even then she comes by train instead of letting me or Andrew, my husband, pick her up. Still I think after yesterday’s episode she may get a change of heart.’

  If Helen and her colleague had been expecting the old lady to be resting and recovering from her ordeal they couldn’t have been more wrong. She looked somewhat guilty as the three women walked into the room and held onto the side of a wall-cupboard to help herself down from the chair she had been standing on.

  ‘Mum, for heaven’s sake! You’ll be the death of me,’ her daughter scolded.

  Mrs Wise
man looked sheepishly past her daughter, and recognising PC Mullen she went towards her and gave her a hug. Not being used to hugs from members of the public, Carol took it as a bonus and gave a gentle squeeze in return.

  After further introductions and the acceptance of some tea and biscuits the four women sat down and Helen began her first solo interview, but not before Mrs Wiseman, who insisted she should be called Hilda, had a few questions of her own.

  ‘Did you find out who he is and what he died of? We’ve all got our money on it being a heart attack but I didn’t see him clutch his chest or cry out in pain – nothing like that! I seem to remember I looked at him just before the train pulled into the station because I’d caught young Ellie’s eye and she’d been looking in his direction.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else, other than Ellie, taking an interest in him?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but then everyone was gathering up their bits and pieces and either standing up or getting ready to dash off when the train stopped. People are in such a rush these days!’

  ‘I understand you get the same train twice a week to come here and so you probably recognise a lot of the passengers,’ Helen suggested.

  ‘Oh, I do, and most of them are very friendly. Some of the younger ones are usually half asleep and a few of them actually doze off …’

  Realising how much Hilda liked talking, Helen tried to rein her in a bit. ‘Tell me the first time you saw the gentleman that died?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Hilda. ‘I had only ever seen him twice before – once last Monday and then again on Thursday. He got on at Treorchy, same as me, and yesterday he stood aside for me to get on – and as there were only a couple of seats available I sat by the window and he took the seat next to me. I mean, normally I’d start up a conversation but I got the impression that he was lost in his own thoughts a bit, so I let him have some privacy.’

  Helen continued. ‘When he got on the train did you see the direction he came from?’

  ‘The car park, I think, but I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘I’d like you to think about the other people on the train. You said that you recognised most of them but did you see any new faces yesterday – anyone who took a particular interest in the man sitting next to you?’

  Even before Helen had finished her sentence Hilda leaned forward in her chair and demanded an answer to her earlier question.

  ‘You didn’t tell me if he did have a heart attack. In fact, young lady, I think you dodged the question of how he died completely. Why are you asking questions about other passengers – surely he wasn’t killed by someone?’

  Helen swallowed hard and decided not to pussyfoot around the issue. ‘We can’t be absolutely sure until we get the results back from the lab, but we believe the gentleman was injected with something and that it’s likely to have caused his death.’

  ‘Well, who did it? When did it happen? Is there anything I can do to help? What about looking at mugshots of people who were on the train?’

  Hilda’s enthusiasm was only stopped by her daughter suggesting she had been watching too many thrillers on TV. Helen thought that the revelation would have upset Hilda, but it looked as if she would be dining out on the story for some time to come.

  Both Helen and Carol were smiling as they headed for the car.

  ‘I hope I have half her bottle when I get to her age!’ Helen hesitated as she remembered that one of the things she should have offered was a counselling service. Carol just laughed.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. She’ll soon be in touch with her views on everything if she wants to share them. I think we can all rest easy in our beds knowing that Treorchy’s own Miss Marple is on the case!’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I’m always being told I should delegate more, so give me a few minutes to find someone gullible enough to take on this paperwork and I’ll be with you. I’d like a sneak preview of the new facilities anyway.’

  ‘Thanks, John, I would really appreciate your input. From the procedural notes it looks to me as if large chunks of evidence may be missing so I need someone with first-hand knowledge of what was happening back then.’

  Martin cut the call to Sergeant Evans and returned to his new toy. He could still write everything up in his preferred three columns but now he didn’t need to stand at a white board. His computer was linked to a large screen on the wall, and Charlie had formatted things so that his preferred layout was ready-made. Martin could type things in instead of having to write them, so there would be no more officers complaining that they couldn’t understand his notes.

  With Charlie’s helpful scanning of the notes from the initial investigation, he had been able to chronologically enter a mountain of information. However he had to remind himself that, although this investigation was new to him, he was seeing a summary of the facts that were available to officers when the case was closed – unsolved. An initial glance had told him that he would never have been happy with this level of detection, and he began posing the questions he would have been asking had he been fronting the case in 1999.

  His ‘Facts to be Checked’ column was already fuller than the nearly empty ‘Absolute Facts’ one. He could see little evidence of anybody making a real effort to discover the dead man’s identity. The post-mortem results described the deceased as a young man, possibly of African origin, and poorly nourished. It gave the usual measurements and a general account of the state of the body, but Martin couldn’t even find anything about the cause of death.

  There were photographs, and Martin realised that Alex had indeed remembered the moment very well. It did look as if the corpse was wearing a ruby-red necklace, the imprint from his killer’s weapon of choice. It had probably been a wire of some sort but there was no indication that the murder weapon had ever been found.

  So ‘murder weapon’ went below ‘identity’ in Martin’s second column, followed by ‘location’, ‘witnesses’, and ‘motive’. He was already certain that there must have been more evidence than was now available to him. A young man had been brutally murdered, left naked in a relatively public place, and Martin had seen more effort put into solving a robbery. It didn’t smell right – but why?

  As if responding to its cue the famous nose of Sergeant Evans entered the room.

  ‘Well, I was told this place was something special – love the comfy chairs!’

  Martin laughed. ‘That’s just the comment I would have expected from you, John. It’s your tell-it-as-it-is input I need to help me understand what was happening with this case.’

  Evans looked at what Martin had projected and nodded. ‘For months afterwards the image of that young man’s body refused to leave my head. There was a lot going on at the time and some urgency to get everyone geared up for the events of the millennium. The powers that be seemed to think that there was going to be a crime-wave. Something to do with computers not being able to cope with the date change, and things like banks’ security being affected. I was no more a techy person back then than I am now but even I remember it had everyone running round in circles.

  ‘An obvious murder like that would normally merit a high-level investigation, but if memory serves it was a newly appointed DI and just a handful of quite junior officers that made up the team.’

  ‘These are the names I’ve picked up from the records, but I don’t recognise any of them. I thought I would talk to them, so if you recall who they are, and what they went on to do, that would be helpful.’

  The sergeant tutted and raised his eyebrows as he glanced over the list of eight names and reread them several times before making his comments.

  ‘The DI I just mentioned is the first name on your list. Jonathan Taylor. It was obvious he was completely out of his depth and I made a point of saying so. You won’t be surprised that nothing was done to help him when I tell you who was calling the shots at the time. It was our mutual friend, ex-Detective Chief Inspector Norman Austin, now languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
/>
  Martin cringed at the very mention of the man who had murdered a number of people – and who had included Martin in his personal list of people to exterminate. ‘I haven’t seen his name on anything to do with the Roath investigation – are you sure?’

  ‘I’m positive. Now … I don’t really remember you being here as a PC, but I do remember you as a DS, and that must have been a couple of years after this case was investigated. You hadn’t been here long when the Vincent Bowen case came up, but as we both know now, Austin had his own rotten reasons for leaving you out of that investigation.’

  ‘I can’t believe now how excited I was to be in the CID and come back to Cardiff as a DS working with DCI Austin – he had an awesome reputation at the time.’

  ‘Well, the man was a brilliant detective. If he’d put his efforts into doing things the right way he would have been an inspiration to us all but somewhere along the line he fell in with evil. He saw corruption, revenge, and murder as the means of paying back people he believed, rightly or wrongly, had damaged him.’ Sergeant Evans shook his head. ‘Sad, really …’

  ‘You’re a much more forgiving man than me, John. I hate the very thought of the man, but probably more to the point I hate the fact that I was taken in by him.’

  ‘You and hundreds of others.’

  ‘But not you?’ suggested Martin.

  ‘No, not me, and that’s why I suggest that when you take a fresh look at this case you remember that things may not always be what they seem. Not with Austin manipulating the people he chose to conduct the investigation.’

  ‘So, Jonathan Taylor. Where will I find him, and what about the others?’ Martin walked into a screened-off area where there was a kettle, a fridge, and a microwave. He made himself a coffee and found a large mug for the strong sweet tea he knew the sergeant preferred.

  He had given Evans time to jot down a note alongside each of the names on the list. They pulled two of the comfy chairs up to a small table, and Evans drank his tea while elaborating on what he had written.