The Maggie Murders

by J P Lomas

  Sobers had spent over a decade trying to make the police come to terms with the fact he was black and now the thought of getting them to come to terms with the fact that he was also most probably gay was one hurdle too many. He’d grown tired of fighting to prove himself and if he couldn’t leave with dignity, at least he could leave. Resigning, rather than fighting the accusations, was his way and he suspected they knew it. It didn’t matter that he was in the right; it was just that being in the right no longer seemed to make you innocent anymore. Putting himself and his family through what was likely to be a high profile redundancy hearing was not in either of their interests

  Fighting his own feelings was hard enough without taking on the evangelical wing of his family as well. Losing your job was one thing; facing the threat of a possible exorcism was quite another. Yet maybe he still had one last trick up his sleeve to gain his mother’s blessing. The Lord after all still worked in mysterious ways.

  As for the death of George Kellow, maybe Hawkins would get to the bottom of it – at least she only had to fight against sexism.

  Chapter 9

  There was too little time. To have evacuated all the crowds of Christmas shoppers would have taken too long. The warning had not specified the make or colour of the car. With increasing anxiety their eyes had searched out potentially suspicious vehicles parked outside the busy shops.

  As tourists and locals washed over the busy street, pooling in and out of the large department stores on the penultimate shopping Saturday before Christmas, an explosion tore through steel, glass and flesh. The hustle and bustle of metropolitan life ceased in one part of the city, whilst in another there was just bafflement and confusion as to the sudden unexpected intrusion. For a moment all that came in the immediate aftermath was a sense of shock. And then the bright yellow display windows and their festive decorations were thrown into relief by the urgent pulses of the blue sirens of the emergency services.

  ‘They’ve bombed Harrods.’

  Jane instantly knew who the ‘they’ referred to. She joined her family in front of the television as the BBC broadcast the news of the latest IRA atrocity. As familiar as the attacks had become, each one on the mainland brought an added horror. They squeezed together on the over-stuffed sofa, Leo between the two of them and Jenny perched on the arm, as the evening news relayed the latest chapter in Britain’s battle against terrorism.

  A police car searching for the bomb had taken the full force of the blast. At least two officers were dead and a third was in a critical condition. This was the media’s code for unlikely to live. An American tourist and two other civilians had also lost their lives, yet it was the image of WPC Arbuthnot which brought the shock home to Jane. In the intimacy of their living room, with some presents already sitting wrapped under their tree and cards perched precariously on every available surface, the photograph of a young woman wearing a dress uniform so similar to her own and a forever frozen smile was being transmitted on the news by the BBC.

  Looking into her young son’s eyes she knew that Leo wanted to ask her something and without needing to know the question, she answered it for him.

  ‘Don’t worry darling, Mummy’s going to be alright. They’re not going to let off any bombs down here.’

  Jenny gave her a reassuring hug and Leo appeared calmer.

  ‘We’re a long way from London,’ smiled Tim, looking at each of their children in turn, ‘it wouldn’t be very newsworthy if they blew up Dingles.’

  ‘Be a good thing if they did, ‘said Jen, ‘They never have anything I want!’

  The joke dispelled the unseasonal gloom which had made the children unusually quiet as they enjoyed the first day of their Christmas holidays. Tim turned the TV off and suggested it might be nicer just to sit and look at the fairy lights on their tree, whilst Leo got his wish to stay up until ten when Jane offered them cocoa and mince pies.

  As Tim readied Jenny and Leo for bed upstairs, Jane felt her eyes welling up as she watched the news again on ITV. As the pictures of the dead officers flashed onto the screen, her tears fell in great snivelling sobs. She stifled herself with a cushion to avoid alarming the children and poured a generous measure of cooking sherry into the remains of her cocoa. In her heart she felt they’d killed three of her own; the Met might be a different force, but they were still police and comrades in arms. Unarmed comrades who had died at the hands of vicious and cowardly killers. The WPC had only been 22. A life not yet lived.

  She could understand her children’s concern for her personal safety, not that she feared for herself. She remembered how Leo had become frightened last year when the news about the first ever woman police constable to die on duty had been broken. Jane had promised she’d never lie to her children, but when he asked her if she was going to die, she couldn’t be truthful. Not at that moment – his little face had looked as if it was about to burst into tears at any second.

  That poor girl (woman seemed way too adult a label) had been killed by a drunk driver - she had only been 18 and straight out of Hendon. Jane felt that she’d never faced real danger herself. She’d been in plenty of situations where she could have been at risk: crowd control duties at football matches, attending domestics and being called to a few pub fights, yet she’d never felt at any personal risk. All of the potential dangers she had played down for Tim and the children, whose experience of modern policing tended to be from ‘Cagney and Lacey’ or ‘Juliet Bravo.’ Tim, for all his reassuring words to the children, was a worrier though and had inherited his mother’s superstitious streak. He’d often say things happened in threes and with two WPCs being killed on duty within a year, she could bet that he would be trying to persuade her to take even more care than she already did.

  Still, as Tim had pointed out, terrorism happened in big cities like London or Birmingham. Hitler might have had it in for Exeter, but the Army Council of the IRA probably had a hundred other targets. Drunk drivers though, she could do nothing about.

  ****

  C is for Ciggy

  Why is everything which is fun suddenly so bad for you? The only danger from smoking at school was being caught and getting rapped over the knuckles. Now they’re spoiling our pleasures with all these bloody health warnings. They’re even forcing us to wear seat belts when driving; another initiative no doubt straight from Brussels High Command! What’s the point of living to a hundred if you have to live like a nun? A little danger makes life worth living.

  The best ciggies at school were always the ones we purloined.

  Yes there are some risks which make you think twice, but the trick is not to think too deeply. As it is I nearly backed out of it. I would have had some Dutch courage, yet the thought of getting pulled over and breathalysed made me stop. If I’d had one glass, I knew I would have had a second and possibly a third.

  And so much for my careful planning. I was as awkward as a virgin on her first night. Getting there passed without a hitch; at least that part of the plan went like clockwork. The place was in almost total darkness and the car was well hidden from view. Yet when I went to retrieve the tools from the boot, I dropped the Jerry can and then realised I’d forgotten to put the gloves on. Fortunately, it fell without much noise – though at the time it seemed loud enough to wake the soon to be dead. Returning to the car, I found the gloves and wiped the can down just in case. I nearly had a cigarette to calm my nerves, but that really would have been Amateur Night at the Palladium!

  I suppose the rest of it only took a few minutes, although I felt every second of it.

  The gap in the fence was where I remembered it and as soon as I’d clambered through, I knew I had quite literally crossed the Rubicon. Having practised with the bolt cutters I wasn’t surprised by the ease with which I snipped through the steel. The gate then opened easily and silently enough, no need for the WD40 I’d taken just in case; however the blasted cap on the can was stiff and it took me a couple of twists to loosen it – God knows what I would have said if anyone
had seen me at that point. Dressed in a ski mask and carrying a can of petrol, I could hardly have claimed to be canvassing for last minute votes!

  It was only then that I realised there was no letterbox on the back door. Of course there wouldn’t have been, yet it was only when standing against the back wall of the building that I realised this schoolboy error in my plan. I was beginning to panic and wondering whether I should try and go around to the more exposed front of the shop, when my luck changed. At the bottom of the door was a cat-flap – purrfect!

  So much for first night nerves, my careful preparations were now being repaid. A funnel and a short length of garden hose had already been acquired for this very purpose – though it seemed to take an age waiting for the liquid to flow through into the building. There wasn’t going to be any innocent way of explaining this now…

  A click of my lighter and it was done, though I was still caught out by the speed of it; a sudden whoosh and the hallway lit up like the Towering Inferno.

  I didn’t stop to check the efficacy of my handiwork, having already bagged my tools I made my exit. Cue applause.

  I’d expected him to burn, but the paper said he died of smoke inhalation and to me that was an anti-climax given all the effort I’d put in and all those risks that I had taken. Never mind it was the result that mattered and I was right about the papers. I’m right about a lot of things. The election kept it off the front page of all the locals and it didn’t even make the nationals. Next time it will be different. They’re bound to make a connection.

  Yet I’ve planned for that; I’ve planned for everything. Who says there’s no such thing as a perfect murder? It’s only the bad murderers who are caught. I’m a good murderer, if that’s not too much of a paradox.

  Maybe I should carry a health warning? And yet that would be already too late for my next victim. If I was his doctor, I’d tell him to make the most of his remaining time on this earth. If ever there was a man who needs to eat, drink and be merry then it’s him, as I’m going to seriously damage his health.

  ****

  Sobers walked gingerly over the pebbles, as he reflected on Millais’ famous painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ in which the young Sir Walter sat on this very beach. The scene showed the young boy gazing with wonder at an old sea dog who was pointing to the horizon and filling the young lad’s head with wondrous tales of adventure. In the Elizabethan era, those great sea voyages carried out by England’s early explorers and colonists must have been like the Apollo space missions.

  Growing up he had learnt how Raleigh had introduced the potato and tobacco to England – one of the few things he’d learnt at school about how the Caribbean had contributed to life over here. Fags and chips, well at least they seemed to like those down in Devon. Maybe it was time he made the journey to the Americas himself? Although the one time he had gone over to see his family and discover his roots had not been the epiphany he thought it would be. As a British teenager, he had not been as readily accepted by his peers and cousins as he had hoped; It was also the first time in his life that he had been taunted for being a batty boy.

  ‘Penny for them!’

  He looked up from watching his footwork and saw Jane on the way to join him. Behind a windbreak closer to the fishing boats pulled up on the shingle, he could make out the silhouettes of her young family. He let her guide her to the firmer ground of the foreshore and cursed his vanity for wearing his Italian loafers.

  ‘Thank-you, Jane.’

  ‘You seem more dressed for Milan than the beach, Sir.’

  He looked around to admire the beauty of the scene. It was a moderately warm day for January and the wide sweep of Budleigh Salterton’s pebble beach, set against the beautiful red cliffs of East Devon was all but empty. The village behind them nestled between the high, lush farmland which separated it from Exmouth to the east and the shallow, but rapid waters of the mouth of the River Otter to the west.

  A few hardy pensioners occupied the benches above the sea wall and an elderly couple in rambling gear were negotiating the last part of the coastal path from Exmouth. A middle aged man was letting his dog splash about in the sea, but Jane’s was the only family to be seen. Tim, Jen and Leo had improvised a game of football, using their bags as a goal. Sobers presumed they were doing this to keep warm, as even though it had been a mild winter, it was still not the type of weather he’d willingly be out in.

  She was dressed in an Aran sweater and slacks, a style which he thought most becoming. Jane’s face had noticeably relaxed on her day off and her trim figure (but for his own tastes thankfully not too thin – he hated those women who went around looking like refugees from a famine with their spines sticking out of their backs) suited her gamine good looks. Jane had brains, beauty and a family she clearly adored; he envied her.

  ‘I was just thinking how lucky you are.’

  ‘Lucky?’ thought Jane, as she reflected on how her children’s delight on being told that they were looking far too peaky for school that morning, had then turned into one of those Hannibal crosses the Alps expeditions in a bid to get them ready for a surprise trip to their favourite beach. In this case favourite being used to suggest ‘better than school’. The fact that she’d forgotten it was early closing day and that most of the shops were closed, especially the ones she had targeted for their delicious local pâtés and cheeses had helped change her children’s mood from exuberant to grouchy. They’d just been fighting over the packet of Jaffa Cakes she’d managed to find in the one shop which was open, when she’d seen her boss scrambling down the shelving pebble beach. Leaving Tim to umpire, she’d welcomed the excuse to be interrupted from maternal duties and wondered if at last they had a breakthrough in the case.

  ‘You haven’t come down here on my day off to tell me I’m lucky,’ she said smiling.

  Sobers broke away from her green eyes and stared out to the horizon.

  ‘No. I wanted you to know that I’ve resigned.’

  ****

  Jez Carberry stared desultorily at a similar seascape. Three miles along the coast from the detectives he idly skimmed a stone over the departing tide. In a week he’d have to return to the equally bleak prospects of East Anglia when term restarted. It was amazing how the promise of escape could so quickly turn into yet another dead end.

  He leafed through the battered copy of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ he’d taken to posing with. It was going to be yet another book he was going to fail to finish reading, he might as well have followed Steve’s advice and taken a copy of Kafka or Camus to Kim’s New Year’s Eve party. Reading Orwell still made him look like a bit of a geek – it was too sci-fi to impress girls with and was now beginning to sound well past its sell by date. Clocks striking thirteen indeed, the author had clearly never heard of the digital age.

  Throwing it into the dunes, he went in search of his friends. At least the pubs would be open in a couple more hours…

  Over in Brixington, former Sergeant Calum Baker mechanically raised and lowered the dumb bells to strengthen his remaining limbs. The optimistic spirit, with which he had tried to meet his first post Falklands New Year, had been replaced by a grim determination when meeting his second. He still hadn’t become used to his disability; however he was not going to allow it to rule his life.

  Catherine Sullivan wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone if it was 1983, 1984 or 1999. The prescription strength tranquilisers had made the last few weeks pass by in a comatose blur. A dull pain she couldn’t shake meant even the vodka she washed them down with couldn’t take away her sense of loss. She reached an arm out from under her duvet to locate her tumbler and hardly noticed the strength of the liquor passing her cracked and dried lips.

  In contrast, Gerald Mallowan’s appreciative sips of the single malt his wife had given him for Christmas were those of a connoisseur. Leafing through the details of local properties, he contentedly considered his next step up the property ladder. He’d become a millionaire well before sixty at the ra
te he was going. Smiling to himself he drank a silent toast to Maggie.

  In the Manor Gardens, Nigel Byrne drained the last dregs of cider from the bottle, as he waited for Dave to pass him the joint. Mandy was going to kill him for wasting his giro on dope, but at least she had a roof over her head now that she’d moved back in with her mum. Taking a toke on the proffered roll-up he considered that it hadn’t been his choice to get her pregnant – he’d never wanted a sprog in the first place.

  It was all Maggie’s fault anyway. If it wasn’t for her, he’d still have a proper job and a flat. A few days here and there, filling in at Cedar Cabs for Abel, was not exactly lucrative. Next time he’d make sure he voted and he wasn’t going to be choosing her, even if the only alternative was that Welsh pillock.

  ****

  Jane and Derek sat holding hands on the shingle. Sobers having explained as candidly as possible his reasons for deciding to leave the force - for once he was unconcerned by the possible damage to his bespoke trousers. He wanted her to know his side, before gossip and rumour (which would inevitably be circling) told her first. It had felt good to unburden himself and to outline why he couldn’t go back to policing. He had tried exile and now he needed to return and confront his demons.

  She’d listened patiently as he adumbrated his love for Ronnie and how it had clashed with his beliefs and those of his family. She was a good copper, because she did listen and a better friend because she knew when not to give counsel. The gentle lapping of the outgoing tide lulled against the shingle, providing a gentle counterpoint to the rich Caribbean inflexion of his story. As she leant into the elegant man beside her and felt him return her hug, she smiled wryly as she thought of Tim’s reaction to this scene. His face would run the gamut of jealous anger to shock and then hopefully sympathy as her future explanations laid bare Derek’s suffering.