Inspector Moore and the Body Behind the Flats

by S G Read

  ‘What about the CI?’

  ‘This isn’t about the pusher, is it? Surely he can’t have any complaints about me pursuing a line of enquiry which might lead to Felltham’s killer?’

  ‘Don’t you believe it? I will take samples from his garden and run them when there is nothing else to do, keep it under the radar, so to speak.’ Bill replied.

  ‘He does have a strong radar detection system though.’ Clayton declared.

  ‘He does but I will beat it.’ Bill answered and walked away. ‘We have the technology Kemo Sabe.’ He called back.

  He met Rebecca coming in with the coffee.

  ‘Where’s mine?’ He asked.

  ‘You can have his, if you like?’ Rebecca answered, offering him Clayton’s coffee.

  ‘I can see me getting away with that!’ Bill exclaimed and walked on.

  As she sat down Clayton looked at the phone, in expectation of it ringing but it stayed silent.

  ‘Are you expecting a call?’ Rebecca asked, daring it to ring.

  ‘No, I just thought it would, as I am drinking coffee. The next body perhaps, you never know when the next one turns up.’

  ‘We haven’t solved the two we have at the moment, without them giving us any more!’ Rebecca declared.

  ‘We will though, sergeant, we will. We always do.’

  ‘So far we have, sir.’ Rebecca pointed out.

  ‘Well I am not about to be beaten by either of these cases. So let us get somewhere with them today.’

  The next time the phone rang it was lunch time and Rebecca answered it.

  ‘Can I speak to someone about the man who was buried in the sports field, please?’ A voice asked.

  ‘You can indeed. My name is Sergeant Stone and your name is?’

  ‘I just thought you ought to know that the man who died was living in the old scout hut behind Jenkins the builder’s yard.’ The voice answered, without giving a name and then rang off.

  ‘We have a lead on the place of residence of our pusher, sir.’ She explained when Clayton looked at her in expectation. ‘She wouldn’t leave her name though.’

  She ran a trace on the last number to ring in and then found out where the phone was that the woman used to call them from.

  ‘She called from a phone box in Amber Close.’

  ‘Where was our victim living then?’ Clayton asked.

  ‘The old scout hut behind Jenkins builder’s yard, sir.’

  ‘Do we know where that is?’ Clayton asked.

  ‘I know where Jenkins’ yard is.’

  ‘Then we will start there and see where it leads us.’ Clayton asked and packed up his sandwiches again.

  They drove to the nearby industrial estate and pulled into Jenkins the builder’s yard. Rebecca parked and, rather than just walk through and look for the scout hut, they walked in to see the manager.

  ‘We have information that there is an old scout hut behind your yard.’ Clayton explained, after they had both show their warrant cards.

  ‘There is, come with me and I will show you.’ The manager answered and they followed him out into the yard.

  Standing in the far right hand corner of the yard the manager pointed through the trees and shrubbery.

  ‘That is the old scout hut!’ He announced.

  The two police officers peered where he was pointing and could just make out the roof of a wooden structure.

  ‘Do you know how to get there, without shinning this fence?’ Clayton asked.

  ‘I think the way to it is in Carmen Street, but I am not sure.’ The manager answered.

  Rebecca drove round for the next half an hour, starting with Carmen Street and then trying the adjoining street without success. The last road they drove down was called Amber Close.

  ‘That rings a bell.’ Clayton exclaimed.

  Rebecca drove to the bottom and stopped, it was a dead end but Clayton climbed out of the car to have a look round. To the left of their car were trees and low shrubbery, there was an obvious path through the shrubbery.

  ‘Fancy a walk?’ He asked and started to follow the path.

  Rebecca locked the car and put the alarm on before following him.

  It was gloomy under the trees, in amongst the shrubbery but they soon found a well-trod path and were able to speed up. At the end of it was the elusive scout hut buried in the shrubbery.

  ‘Easy to miss this in here,’ Rebecca declared, ‘do we go back for a search warrant?’

  Clayton looked at the big padlock which stopped the door from opening.

  ‘It does not belong to anyone and we aren’t looking to arrest him for selling drugs, as he’s dead, so I think the answer is no. Thirty seconds should be long enough.’ He answered.

  ‘I’ll give you twenty seconds.’ Rebecca challenged.

  ‘Let me know when to start.’ Clayton replied.

  ‘Go for it, sir.’

  Clayton slipped on some throw away gloves and twenty three seconds later the lock was open.

  ‘Close but no cigar, sir.’ Rebecca exclaimed putting on her gloves.

  ‘But better than the thirty seconds I thought it would take.’ Clayton replied.

  They walked inside.

  ‘Look first, search later.’ Clayton ordered. ‘I want to get an idea about the man, if I can.’

  ‘Here’s a box from a Rolex, sir.’ Rebecca declared, pointing in the waste paper bin.

  ‘We will need to find the serial number to ensure it is the one the student bought.’ Clayton answered.

  They continued, just looking at things that were visible. The serial number and the receipt for the earring were easy to find, they were not hidden, just lying on the table but they did not find any drugs.

  ‘Well we know someone lived here for a while.’ Clayton declared. ‘And from the descriptions given, it certainly sounds like our drugs runner, so where are the drugs?’

  ‘Taken after they killed him, sir?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘It could be the case but it looks so untouched in here, just as he left it, maybe. So are they hidden? Or were they in plain sight and just taken from where they stood by his killer?’

  ‘Shall I call Bill?’

  ‘No, not at this juncture,’ Clayton answered, ‘we will do it by the book, lock the place back up and see if we need a warrant or just permission from the owners, then send Bill and his men in to take it apart.’

  They put things back as they had found them and locked the door before returning to the office. Rebecca started tracing the owner of the scout hut, while Clayton sat thinking about both cases.

  Meanwhile, Bill took one man and drove to test the Felltham’s garden. They were soon sitting down, drinking tea in Agnes Felltham’s lounge.

  ‘Do you know where he was working the day he died Mrs. Felltham?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Call me Agnes, everyone else does. And no, when he went through that door I did not know where he went, he would sometimes potter about in our garden but most of the time he would go down to the allotment and work there. Why?’

  ‘We are trying to establish where he was just before he died and I want to take samples from the soil in the garden, Agnes.’

  ‘Go ahead dear, but don’t you drag any soil back into my clean house.’ Agnes answered.

  Bill and his assistant collected their samples and labeled them, so that they knew which bed they came from, just in case Leslie Felltham had put different fertilizer on different beds. When they had enough samples Bill knocked the back door but did not go inside, just in case.

  ‘We have all we came for, Agnes, thank you for the tea.’ He said politely.

  ‘You drop in if you are passing, the kettle is always ready to boil.’ Agnes replied.

  Bill nodded, turned and walked up to the gate. At the gate he looked back.

  ‘You kept a lovely garden, Leslie, it’s too bad it will go downhill from now on!’ He sighed and walked out to the van.

  The judge Rebecca approached approved the search warrant w
hen the scout group announced that they had no interest in what happened to the old scout hut. The owner of the land had not voiced any objections but they still did it by the book.

  They left the station, search warrant in hand, with Bill’s team coming to do the searching. Clayton and Rebecca arrived in Amber Close, parked and waited for Bill’s team to arrive and then led them to the scout hut. A pair of bolt croppers dispatched the padlock to the rubbish bin and they were soon in searching. They did stop to take a sample of the fingerprints inside to prove, at least, that Deng Lee had been inside the scout hut.

  ‘It is a good job we wore gloves, sir.’ Rebecca whispered.

  Clayton just nodded.

  They took any clothes for a DNA comparison and then the search began in earnest. They worked their way through what cupboards there were and the carrier bags which Deng had obviously used to carry his shopping to the scout hut but did not find anything.

  ‘That is the easy search completed.’ Bill reported. ‘Now we search in earnest.’

  Walls were checked for loose covering, and floorboards were checked for secret compartments. Again they found nothing. Bill stood and looked round the room.

  ‘When you have searched all the obvious places and found nothing, it is usually because there is nothing to find or they are in a clever hiding place.’ He declared.

  ‘What about that boiler?’ Rebecca asked.

  Bill looked at the oil fired boiler which took pride of place in the corner of the room.

  ‘Is there an oil tank outside, Jason?’ He asked.

  One man, obviously Jason, went out to look. He returned five minutes later.

  ‘No boss. No oil tank, just the pipe sticking up where the tank should be.’ Jason advised him.

  ‘Let us look in the boiler then.’ Bill declared.

  They opened the front of the boiler, lifted off the top and found a series of bolts which held the top plate in place. The nuts on the bolts were finger tight.

  ‘Getting warm.’ Bill exclaimed and they took the nuts off.

  When the plate was removed there was a space which had been turned into a clean storage space, it was crammed with various types of drugs.

  ‘Bingo.’ Bill declared.

  They catalogued the drugs and finished the search, to see if there were any more drugs about but all the drugs were inside the boiler. The scout hut was sealed with a padlock supplied by the police and the place left secure.

  ‘What will happen to the scout hut now, sir?’ Rebecca asked as she drove back to the office.

  ‘I have no idea, Rebecca.’

  ‘It seems such a waste when, not far away you have a bunch of children who hang about a block of flats because they have nowhere else to go!’ She exclaimed. ‘It would make a smashing youth club.’

  ‘In a perfect world they would be able to use it, but this is not a perfect world.’ Clayton replied. ‘Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. You did find out who owned the scout hut, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir.’

  ‘Then I will go and see them, to find out what is going to happen to it.’

  Rebecca smiled but did not answer. She drove back to the office and she read her notes to remind herself who did own the scout hut.

  ‘The land belongs to Lady Silvia Carstairs, the scout hut belongs to her by the fact that it is on her land and the scout association do not want it.’ She announced.

  ‘Lady,’ Clayton echoed, ‘best arrange an appointment to see her then.’

  ‘When do you want to go and see her, sir?’

  ‘When she is available I suppose, we’ll fit in with her, sergeant, as we are the ones who want a favour.’

  ‘I will ring her then, sir.’

  ‘When you have done that, send a car to collect the Rolex from the auction house, as we now have proof that Deng Lee did own it. Is there any news from Gerald about our charity worker’s accounts?’

  ‘I’ll find out, sir.’

  The answer was no, at the moment, so now was not the time to go back and talk to her. Clayton rang Gerald.

  ‘I was expecting to hear from you, Gerald,’ he announced when Gerald answered, ‘and I haven’t! Is there a reason for that?’

  ‘I had to stop working on it Inspector Moore, the CI found out that it was connected to the drug runner.’ Gerald explained.

  ‘Well, I want you to do what I asked, he is not the one who is trying to find a killer, or killers. I want some news on her accounts before I go home tonight!’

  ‘The CI won’t like that, inspector.’ Gerald declared.

  ‘I will deal with the CI, Gerald, get it done!’

  ‘On your head be it.’ Gerald replied.

  An hour later the chief inspector sent word that he wanted to see Clayton, Clayton walked off to see him and he was ready to do battle. He knocked the door after he had straightened his suit as best he could.

  ‘Come in inspector.’ The chief inspector called.

  Clayton walked in, but did not sit down. The chief inspector detected an air of defiance and looked up.

  ‘I cannot work with my hands and feet tied chief inspector.’ Clayton announced, still standing. ‘If you insist on blocking me from solving this case I have no option than to resign!’

  He pulled out a crumpled letter from his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Not again!’ The chief inspector complained.

  The letter was crumpled because it had been used before and more than once. It had no date on it but was signed as active immediately. As Clayton was responsible for clearing up the cases the other inspectors failed to or did not want, he was a valuable asset.

  ‘When this investigation started you wanted results, now because he was nothing more than a drug runner and no longer racial, it is suddenly no longer of importance. One murder should be just as important as another, even if it is a drug runner.’ Clayton complained, the kid gloves were off and there was no servility, as Clayton now considered himself resigned now and a civilian. ‘I detest drug runners as much as you do but he was murdered.’

  ‘We have a budget to work to Clayton and if we throw money after each drug runner who gets killed we will not have money to investigate the important cases.’ The chief inspector retorted. ‘Still, do what you have to, to put this one to bed but don’t go overboard!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Clayton replied.

  ‘And take that crumpled letter of resignation with you!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Clayton put the letter back into his pocket, for the next time. Although he had resigned on other occasions and the outcome had been the same, he meant it, every time he resigned. He was ready to go!

  ‘Lady Carstairs will see you tomorrow at eight AM, sir.’ Rebecca announced when Clayton returned to his desk.

  ‘Good, you can pick me up at seven, just to make sure we aren’t late getting there.’ Clayton replied. ‘You assumed that he did not accept my resignation then?’

  ‘Of course, sir, he is not a fool. The CI did agree to the extra expenses then?’

  ‘Yes, he saw sense. I want to solve this one as much as the Leslie Felltham murder but it is becoming hard work!’

  In the morning Rebecca picked up Clayton and drove him straight to Lady Carstairs large house in the suburbs. They arrived ten minutes earlier than the appointment and sat in the car, to wait for eight o’clock.

  ‘Bill is running tests on the watch but it has been though a lot of hands since it was taken off the victim, sir.’ Rebecca announced, reading it from her notebook.

  ‘Just one print, which is not accounted for will do, just something to point us in the right direction.’ Clayton replied.

  ‘Leslie Felltham was working on his rose bed before he was killed, sir.’ Rebecca added and passed the file she had with her to him.

  ‘So where did he go when he left the rose bed and why? Someone killed him wherever he went, so what did he see?’ Clayton asked.

  ‘He might have walked into the people when they were bur
ying our drug runner up to his neck, sir.’ Rebecca suggested.

  ‘That would explain the murder and the dumping of the body away from the scene of the crime, if they were intent on murder why did they buried him alive, and why kill Felltham?’

  ‘Spur of the moment?’ Rebecca suggested. ‘Someone reacted without thinking and suddenly they had a body to get rid of? They might have hit him with the back of the spade they were using?’

  ‘It is possible, I suppose but something tells me there is more to it.’ Clayton declared. ‘Still, let me go in and talk to her ladyship but tell Chastity to try the shape of a spade or a shovel against Leslie Felltham’s wound.’

  ‘I will, sir, do you want me to wait for you to come back out?’

  ‘No Rebecca, I’ll get a taxi back to the office.’ Clayton answered. ‘There are a few about.’

  They drove to the gate and Clayton pressed the intercom by it.

  ‘Yes?’ A voice asked.

  ‘Inspector Moore of Pimlico police, to see Lady Carstairs.’ Clayton answered.

  The gates opened and Rebecca drove Clayton to the front of the house. Clayton walked up to the front door as Rebecca drove away. The butler opened the door, it was obvious that he was the butler by his attire.

  ‘Inspector Moore to see her ladyship.’ Clayton repeated.

  ‘Quite, please come in inspector, her ladyship is expecting you.’ The butler answered and stood to one side to allow Clayton inside.

  Clayton was relieved of his coat and taken to a large parlour, there he was allowed to sit in an armchair, where he waited until Lady Carstairs arrived.

  ‘Sorry to keep you inspector, I was choosing new curtains.’ She said when she walked in and sat down, choosing to sit opposite Clayton. ‘Now how can I help you?’

  ‘I believe you are the owner of the land the scout hut sits on, the old scout hut that is.’ Clayton answered.

  ‘Oh that old thing. I own the land both scout huts are on actually but I had forgotten about the old scout hut. I thought it would have been torn to bits by the local ruffians by now.’