The Maggie Murders

by J P Lomas

  Having arrived half an hour late and unshaven (which was not his style at all - whatever others might call ‘designer stubble’ he still called laziness), to find his team either smoking, drinking coffee or reading the papers had not put him in a better mood. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but he felt that at least with another officer they might at least have put on a show of being hard at work. When he’d gathered them together in front of the white board (which only seemed to emphasise their lack of leads), it did nothing to dispel his feelings that his team did not respect him. At least Macbeth commanded ‘mouth honour’ he thought as one of the young PCs questioned the point of following up any holidaymakers who had returned home from their vacation who might have been passing through Littleham Cross on the night in question.

  As a young constable he would never have had the temerity to even ask a question of a senior officer. He wished he possessed the casual savagery of his last DI who had responded to questions from the rank and file by snarling ‘If you ever speak to me again, I’ll rip your bloody balls off and shove ‘em so far down your throat you’ll be singin’ the high notes for the rest of your miserable life’. Yet Sobers had always felt reason was a better way of leading and had gone as far as lowering himself to answer the question with good grace; he could tell by the stony faces of the squad that this was not the way of winning their respect.

  If he’d been a smoker, then maybe he could have generated a fug of nicotine fumes to hide behind, but as it was he felt the other dozen desks in the room all focussed on his. At first he believed the excitement generated by working on a murder case would have united them behind him, yet they were now at the stage where they were bogged down in the minutiae of the case and where a quick result was not even at the race course, let alone on the cards.

  The fact that the only new angle he’d been able to offer them was a homophobic one had only served to further dampen their enthusiasm for catching the killer. In the toilets, which were also lacking in privacy, he’d overheard one of the local bobbies, either Salmons or Rundle joking that the victim’s shop had been set on fire to burn all the faggots. It hadn’t surprised him, apart from the relatively sophisticated level of the pun, as he had heard just as many similar comments when serving with the Met - even so it had sown yet another doubt in his mind about his chosen vocation.

  Having dealt with most of the routine and monotonous paperwork in his briefcase at home the previous night, he was left with the letter from Ronnie. Ronnie being the main reason behind his transfer down south and the very someone he hadn’t given his new address to. An explanation that she had wheedled the address out of his younger sister was one of the least inflammatory things in the package; the Polaroid snaps of them together were the most explosive. He surreptitiously scanned the room, but apart from a couple of uniforms collating information and typing up statements he was alone. He gazed down on a full frontal photo of Ronnie in just her underwear and felt a flicker of lust rekindle itself. There was a second snap of them cuddling on a sofa the time he had almost given in to his passion; thank the Lord he’d forgotten to bring any protection that night… The final part of this unholy trinity was of them kissing at Chris’s 21st birthday; he must have been the oldest one there that night.

  Ronnie was so beautiful. Her athletic and slender physique, come to bed blue eyes and wide lips still moved him. How often he had wanted to feel those lips on him… Yet she had only been 19 and he was over 40; it just wasn’t right. He’d been drunk on champagne the night they’d met and believed her when she claimed to be 25. It was funny, people usually took years off their age rather than adding them on. There were other things wrong with her too; she hung out with a fast set which both dealt and took drugs; she was selfish and capricious and she shared none of his cultural tastes. She had also flirted with other men and slept with them. She had denied this, but he knew and could hardly blame her when he was unwilling to give into her completely… And yet for one whole summer he had put his career and soul on the line for her; Ronnie.

  There had been so many risks involved. One time he’d only just got her out of a party before it got busted, another he’d had to use his badge to persuade security not to call the police when she collapsed in a club. It wasn’t only the police. If his family knew they’d disown him. As for his faith, well it wanted him married and having children by his age.

  Why had Ronnie sent him this stuff? He’d finally broken up with her when she’d brought drugs back to his flat and yet the breaking up had been going on almost since they met. She of course manipulated him every which way, yet when he’d loved her he hadn’t minded being taken for a ride. Now though, he was sure it was just money she was after. She had expensive tastes and he’d provided – become, he flinched at the expression, her Sugar Daddy.

  Sobers suddenly became aware of a WPC in his peripheral vision and in a panic shoved the photos and letter into his desk drawer.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Was that sarcasm in her voice – had she seen?

  ‘Constable?’

  ‘It’s D.S. Hawkins, sir. She wonders if you got her note – you weren’t answering your radio.’

  It was only now that Sobers discovered the yellow post-it under his briefcase and realised he’d left his radio in the car.

  ‘Thank you –‘

  ‘Clark, sir.’

  ‘Yes, thank you Clark. Tell her I’m on my way.’

  Was that a purse of her lips as she walked away? He’d known her name. Sandy Clark had just been on the tip of his lips when she’d beaten him to it. He looked again at the note – the Clock Tower at 11.00am. He’d have to hurry if he wasn’t going to get a reputation for being late.

  Chapter 5

  Jane met Debbie on the seafront. The High Season was about to begin and the resort was already getting busy. Exmouth beach stretched from the Jurassic era red cliffs of Orcombe Point at one end, past the sand dunes and all the way down to the docks at the other. From where Jane was standing, close by the clock tower, she could make out neither of these extremities.

  Holidaymakers packed this section of the beach with their windbreaks, rugs and toys. Little children played on the foreshore, while some braver people bathed in the area between the yellow flags, avoiding the more hazardous red flagged stretches. Other children (and some dads) dug holes or buried relations under horizontal barrows of sand until only their heads poked out. Some constructed traditional sand castles using colourful plastic buckets moulded into the shape of medieval keeps, before decorating them with cockle shells and pieces of seaweed; others made more elaborate fortifications which put even the castle building endeavours of Edward I to shame. A few young women had stripped down to their bikinis and were optimistically trying to tan themselves. A game of beach cricket, with a single wicket and an unorthodox arrangement of fielders had broken out towards the dunes. A mum enthusiastically threw a Frisbee at her oblivious toddler and further along towards the rocks, a few donkeys straggled along with their rides. On the horizon a few sailing boats took advantage of the breeze, whilst further out a coaster negotiated its way through the treacherous waters of the estuary as it left the docks behind.

  Jane made a mental note to try and bring Tim and the children down here on Sunday; she owed them a treat after the long hours she had been putting in that week. Today’s appointment was at the appropriately named Octagon Café situated just behind the swing-boats and donkey rides. At an open serving hatch in an eighth of the polygonal perimeter, they bought ninety-nines and then walked down the esplanade towards the docks. By the time they reached one of the ornate seafront shelters overlooking the man-made sea defences at the far end of the beach, they’d licked their ice creams into shape and were able to move on from pleasantries about Debbie’s new boyfriend and how Jane’s kids were looking forward to breaking up for the long summer holiday.

  Given it was midday, the wide seats in the covered shelter were even devoid of the perpetually wrapped up pensioners, who had heade
d back to their hotels and guest houses for lunch. They were free to cut to the chase.

  ‘I found several mentions of George Kellow in the archive. His dad was also a butcher, seems to have been a family business and there was a sister Winnie, well you’ve met her and a younger brother…’

  ‘Harry, the only one Winnie would admit to,’ added Jane.

  ‘Harry Edward Kellow – he was killed shortly after D-Day. Anyway, the main reports about what happened to George after prison are mainly from the mid-fifties. I don’t think he reported the attacks, but several other shopkeepers in Littleham made claims in the mid to late Fifties of a gang of youths, ‘Teddy Boys’ according to the published account, throwing stones and breaking windows in Littleham Cross. There were a couple of arrests in ’58, though only one man was ever charged and that was with being drunk and disorderly. Seems he got off with a fine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A Paul Francis Reed of Withycombe Road, Exmouth.’

  Jane added the details to her notes.

  ‘So when do I get to meet Shaft?’

  Jane tensed, before realising Debbie was just trying to be light hearted about her boss’ skin colour – it was no more annoying than the endless banter the boys had of calling her ‘Miss Marple’; far better than their incessant jokes about trying to find out if she was a natural blonde.

  Jane nodded in the direction of Orcombe Point –

  ‘He’s on his way now.’

  Debbie temporarily banished her internal debate over whether Adam, the man with whom she had now enjoyed drinks with on three occasions and a meal on one was her soul mate, when she saw the tall, handsome man with close cropped dark hair and eyes that made her insides melt like honey, walking towards her. The well cut blue suit, white shirt with French cuffs and elegant ankle boots were things her mother would certainly approve of. Of course he must be at least twice her age and he was the only black man she’d seen who hadn’t been on the telly.

  Sobers extended a well-manicured hand to the boyishly dressed girl in front of him –

  ‘Miss Rowe, I believe you’ve been a great help, let me buy you some lunch.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he gently turned her towards the direction of the Imperial Hotel; the closest Exmouth got to its bygone age of Victorian splendour.

  ****

  Half an hour had passed since Sobers had walked Debbie past the Imperial to the fish ‘n’ chip café opposite the Octagon. Still they were now on the Derek and Debs stage of the conversation, having dropped their more formal opening gambits, so things weren’t all bad. Derek had spun a few tales about policing in London to help give some colour to Debbie’s article, though he’d been surprised about how perspicacious her questions could be.

  She’d taken some time to do her background research and had asked him some quite tricky questions about both inner city policing and his personal experiences of policing the Brixton riots. Fortunately for him, he’d been able to truthfully tell her he had been investigating an armed robbery in Wembley when the relationship between Brixton’s largely black community and the Metropolitan Police had broken down and descended into street fighting in the summer of ’81.

  Debbie had been keen to play up the race angle and yet Sobers had made sure that he’d pointed out that social deprivation had contributed not only to the riots in inner city London, but to those in Bristol and Liverpool too. Having grown up in South London, Sobers still felt the need to try and be even handed; not all the rioters had been young criminals on the make. He also told her how often he’d been stopped and searched, although he made her promise not to include it in any finished article, furthermore he also managed to gain her agreement to letting him see the article first. He certainly couldn’t be seen to be attacking the institution from the inside if he was going to make a go of his career.

  He’d most surprised her with his answer of what he would have done if he hadn’t joined the police. She thought he was pulling her leg until she saw the grave look on his face. She promised to keep that out of the article as well.

  ****

  It should have been an idyllic summer’s day, the sort of day that made people in the city idling through their Sunday supplements want to move to the countryside. And for those visitors to Devon not finding it hard to negotiate the high hedged, narrow country lanes, or who had avoided the tailbacks on the M5 into Exeter, there still may have been the dream of owning that lovely thatched cottage, with roses trailing up the sun warmed walls. Perhaps some of these urbanites even hankered after a permanent holiday among the rolling hills and golden sands? Some may even have been wistfully calculating the option of a long commute to jobs in the city from the perfect cottage they had just discovered. Yet there were also many Devonians for whom the more mundane metropolitan delights of a multiplex might have won out over these rural delights. The bored teenagers of Leeds and London had nothing on the claustrophobia experienced by their country cousins.

  Jez Carberry had been waiting all morning for someone to call him. His mother kept suggesting he went to the beach, but he was bored of the beach and tired of windsurfing. His A’ level results were still three weeks off and he couldn’t wait to get them; they were his passport out of here. He glanced down at his computer and saw the game was still loading. Everything seemed to be taking a long time today. He lolled his head back on his pillow and caught Kate Bush’s eyes on the poster over his bed. Steve had been right; you could make out her nipple underneath the tight top she was wearing.

  Steve had given him quite a lot of stick for getting off with Katy’s younger sister, but did it really matter? They hadn’t done anything after all and he wouldn’t now; not after all their piss takes about him being a cradle snatcher. To be logical about it, Liddy was only 3 years younger than him, which was a far narrower age gap than that between his own parents. She was also only a year younger than the girl Steve had met at Nicky’s last night and no-one had given him any stick. The fact that he hadn’t got off with anyone last night, let alone in the last month was frustrating him and making him feel that this summer was not going to be the carefree end to school and the one long party he had anticipated. The fact that there were now five early morning shifts at the bakery between now and the next Friday down the Wheatsheaf also depressed him.

  He wondered where Liddy might be right now? Katy and her friends had been at the pub on Saturday, yet she seemed to have made a determined effort to ditch her younger sister since her party. He’d overheard someone say he’d seen her at the Dog, yet he couldn’t go there – that really was the kids’ pub – you didn’t even have to look 18 to get served there. The Bennetts lived off Exeter Road, but he could hardly go round there on a Sunday… Katy was more Steve’s friend than his and if she was in, she’d know she’d see through his smokescreen.

  His computer beeped, the game had finally finished loading. Yet now he was no longer in the mood for ‘Elite’. He grabbed a less dirty T-shirt from the floor, squirted some Brut under his arms and headed for the door. Going out now seemed a better option. Despite the open windows and wide balcony overlooking the sea, the flat seemed stifling. Anyway, his Mum was always telling him to get more air.

  ****

  George Dent never felt it easy to relax. He would have much preferred to have worn his smart, blue dress uniform to the endless round of barbecues and Sunday Roasts his wife inveigled invitations to on seemingly every weekend that summer. This was when not returning the unwanted hospitality by having to host their own over planned and overpriced ‘Sunday Gatherings’… These return visits were even worse, as they forced him to fumble over charcoal and lighting bricks as he struggled with the demands of the Modern Caveman by burning various cuts of meat for plummy voiced guests who insisted on offering tips and advice at every opportunity. The main point of these too frequent occasions was for Delia to demonstrate their new found status as owners of a large des res in the pricey and picturesque village of Knowle.

  In many ways he felt
the system of pairing off, as adopted by Conservative and Labour MPs from far flung constituencies might be better adapted for the social gatherings of the chattering classes. Like their political masters, they could all agree it was far too much effort to meet up and just agree to cancel each other out by consuming their own charred steaks at home, without any need for reciprocation.

  The weather felt close and therefore made him more irritable than usual. Of course he’d had to drive out here and of course his children had made their usual fuss about not wanting to go. Delia chose not to drive and that meant he was usually limited to a single drink. This would not stop people putting pressure on him to have endless refills and he would hear the endless refrain that if the Assistant Chief Constable couldn’t drink and drive then who could! The fixed grin he had adopted for this inevitable joke had now become a part of his repertoire on these occasions. He had only just now placed his hand over his glass, as one of the host’s children had come around with a jug of badly mixed Pimms.

  In the far corner of the Newsomes’ garden, he saw his younger daughter sitting desultorily on a swing that she was a good four years too old for nowadays; her complaint about having no-one to talk to, seemed to have been borne out. A few very young children, most likely pre-school splashed around in a blue inflatable pool under the watchful eye of a woman who was probably the nanny. The Newsomes' older children had been press-ganged as waiters and were hefting jugs of Pimms and bottles of wine around their newly bought ancestral home.

  Clive, his never off-duty estate agent friend, had already pointed out the garden was newly laid out and not mature and though not a short coming per se, houses often looked better when complemented by a less minimalist look in his opinion. Fiona was over with her mother, being kept on a very short leash having embarrassed them at the Gordons over Easter, when she’d been caught smoking in the conservatory. He still wasn’t sure whether it was the smoking, or the fact that she’d stolen the cigarettes from Angela Gordon’s bedroom table that had been the real embarrassment for Delia. The fact that Angela Gordon and her husband were part of the group making small talk with his wife below the awning the Newsomes had erected over their patio did not mean Number One Daughter was necessarily persona grata again. He wondered if Delia was having to make more capital out of the fact that he had helped Rob Newsome’s brother escape a drunk and disorderly charge four years ago when he was still a Chief Super?