Particular Stupidities (The Romney And Marsh Files Book 5)

by Oliver Tidy

  ‘The body has suffered head trauma. You wouldn’t be able to recognise him. The forensic results will take a few days. In the meantime I’d like you to answer a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind. Perhaps we might be able to prove a little quicker than forensics that the body is not your son.’ It was a rotten but necessary carrot to dangle in front of the grieving mother. Romney just had to hope that the woman would be desperate enough to nibble at it because he was more than half convinced that the remains were Lance Leavey’s. ‘Lance lived with you, I understand.’

  She nodded and talked about him in the present tense. ‘He’s never moved out. It was his birthday last week. Twenty-five.’

  Romney thought it best to also speak as though Lance were not dead. ‘What does Lance do for work?’

  ‘He doesn’t have a job. He worked here for a bit but they had to let him go when things dropped off. Work’s not easy to find if you’re young with no exams.’

  ‘Does he have any special friends that he hangs around with? Anywhere that he would regularly go to? How about a girlfriend?’

  ‘Martin works here. Martin’s his friend. And Sally. Lance and Sally go out together.’

  ‘Are they both here today?’ Romney hoped that they were. He’d rather be talking to friends than a distraught and emotionally fragile mother. He could be blunter and he’d probably stand more chance of finding things out.

  Mrs Leavey nodded.

  Romney thought for a moment. He said, ‘Mrs Leavey I want to put your mind at rest one way or the other over this as quickly as possible. To do that we need to get you to the nearest police station so that someone can take a DNA sample from you, then we can take it back to Dover with us and make it top priority.’

  Mrs Leavey could only nod and whimper.

  Romney looked at Marsh and said, ‘See to it, please. Find out where the local station with facilities is and drive Mrs Leavey there. Get it done and bring her back.’ Romney handed Marsh his car keys.

  Mrs Leavey said, ‘I’ll need to ask permission to leave work.’

  ‘We can take care of that, Mrs Leavey,’ said Romney. ‘You just get anything you need to take with you.’

  Mrs Leavey pushed back her chair and went out, sniffing loudly.

  To Marsh, Romney said, ‘While you’re out with her I’ll have a word with Martin and the girlfriend. See if they can shed some light on Lance’s life.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask her about the belt buckle?’ said Marsh.

  ‘Why would I have?’

  ‘She could have confirmed it.’

  ‘Did you see the state of her? She’s ready to blow. And I don’t want to be around when she does. All I’ve done is delay the inevitable. I’ve given her a couple more days of her life that she isn’t going to have to live with the certain knowledge of what happened to her son. I’d say that could be considered an act of kindness.’

  Cowardice more likely, thought Marsh.

  ‘Besides, we don’t need it confirmed. We’ve got the belt and he was wearing one just like it in the picture. What else is there to learn about it?’

  ‘You want me to take Philip?’

  Romney looked at Fower and shook his head. ‘No. Leave him with me. He can sit in on my interviewing. He’ll learn more than he will riding around in the back of the car all day, staring out of the window.’ Mrs Leavey came back through the door. Quietly, Romney said, ‘And Joy, don’t take all day, eh?’

  When Marsh and Mrs Leavey had left, Romney said, ‘Right then, young Fower. Time to make yourself useful: speak to the manager, tell him we need this room for a bit longer yet. Then go and find Martin and escort him up here. Don’t tell him what it’s about and don’t get friendly with him. If he knows something or he’s got something to hide he’ll be more worried.’ Romney started on the biscuits.

  *

  Martin Shields came into the room ahead of Fower to find Romney sitting upright and stern-faced the other side and in the middle of the big table. Romney did not smile at the young man.

  Shields was a stereotype of his generation, his class and his cultural influences. Skinny jeans hanging half way down his backside, a tight T-shirt advertising a brand of sports clothing, grubby trainers and a baseball cap on back to front. He had acne, two earrings and a tattoo that covered the whole of his left arm.

  Romney’s eye was drawn to this last feature. He pointed to the chair opposite him and said, ‘Come in, Martin. Sit down.’ He wanted to tell him to take his bloody hat off but seeing as they weren’t at the station he decided to swallow his irritation at the disrespect. Romney indicated the youth’s arm, ‘That’s called a sleeve tattoo, isn’t it?’

  Martin looked a bit puzzled. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘They’re quite fashionable, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘What’s the point of them?’

  ‘How do you mean? I don’t get you.’

  ‘OK. Why did you have it done?’

  ‘I like the designs, don’t I? And a sleeve, it’s like a chance to record important things in your life, yeah?’

  ‘Such as?’

  Martin extended his arm in front of him and pointed out a couple of tattoos. ‘This one is United’s badge; this one’s from when I went on holiday to Greece; this one, well I just like the pattern. It’s tribal, innit?

  Romney was squinting at some lettering. ‘Is that a name of somewhere on the inside of your forearm? The place in Greece, perhaps?’

  ‘Not somewhere, someone. It’s my little girl’s name – Xandra.’

  Romney frowned. ‘With an ‘x’? Never heard that one before.’

  ‘We wanted something different for her.’

  ‘Are they expensive?’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Tattoos, Martin.’

  ‘I’ve spent about eight hundred quid on this one.’

  ‘Really? That’s... astounding. Will you have the other arm done, too?’

  ‘When I can afford it.’

  ‘But you’ll need some more important memories first, won’t you? Maybe some more children? You’ll probably need to do some saving up too, eh? My name is Detective Inspector Romney. I’m from Dover police station.’ Romney decided to continue talking about Lance as though he were still alive. ‘I gather you’re a good friend of Lance Leavey.’

  Martin clearly didn’t feel the same. ‘Lance was a mate, yeah.’

  ‘Was?’ said Romney. ‘You two fall out?’

  Martin frowned hard. ‘Lance is dead.’

  ‘Pardon.’

  ‘Everyone knows that Lance is dead. He must be. Only his mum and Sally still think he’s alive.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ said Romney.

  ‘It makes no sense. Lance wasn’t the type to disappear. He had nowhere to go. No ambition to travel. No reason to leave.’

  ‘Maybe he had a nervous breakdown. An accident and lost his memory.’

  Martin indicated what he thought of those possibilities with a snort.

  ‘What do you think’s happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I thought you’d found him. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t know if we have, Martin. We have a body that fits the general description but it’s a hell of a mess.’ Martin swallowed. ‘Our body turned up in Dover. You ever hear Lance talk about Dover?’

  The youth shook his head and said, ‘No. Never.’ Romney didn’t altogether believe him.

  ‘No friends there? No family? No day trips?’ Martin shook his head again. Romney frowned. He said, ‘Lance had other friends, right?’

  ‘Yeah. Course.’

  ‘Anyone special? Anyone he saw a lot of in the time before he went missing?’

  ‘Sally.’

  ‘His girlfriend?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She works here?’

  Martin nodded.

  ‘Is there anything that’s occurred to you in the time since Lance has been missing that could of
fer some explanation for his disappearance? Anything odd, unusual, different in his life?’

  Martin shook his head.

  Romney felt he was wasting his time. He knew where to find Martin is he needed him. He thanked him and told Fower to go and get Sally.

  Sally was not naturally attractive. But in a cheaply artificial and contrived sort of way she would get second glances. She knew what clothes and products would enhance what she had to work with and the figure and bone structure were not bad. One of those, thought Romney, who didn’t look so good in the morning before the make-up went on with a trowel and when her dark roots were spoiling the unnatural blondeness of her badly crimped hair. She was also obviously pregnant.

  From the moment she’d entered the room, Romney felt hostile vibrations coming off her. He tried to be nice. ‘Come in, Sally. Take a seat. Sorry to drag you away from your work. This shouldn’t take long.’

  She said, ‘Don’t matter to me. Take as long as you like. Boring working down there. Nice to have a break.’ To Romney’s ear her vapid vowels and coarse consonants were on a level with fingernails going down a blackboard.

  Forcing himself to remain affable, he said, ‘What do you do here?’

  ‘What you want to know that for?’

  He shrugged and made an appropriate face. ‘I just wondered.’

  She made a face like it didn’t matter to her, like replying to his question was a waste of her precious time. ‘I solder joints all day; know what I mean?’ Romney nodded. ‘Then you know why I’m glad to get out of it for a bit.’

  ‘Must be tough in your... condition. Hot work, on your feet all day.’

  She lifted her chin a couple of degrees. ‘I can do it.’

  ‘You were Lance’s girlfriend, I understand.’

  ‘No. I am his girlfriend. And till I see his dead body that’s the way it stays.’

  Romney found himself having to think a little quicker in the light of news of her pregnancy. He also wished that Lance’s nearest and dearest could have all agreed on whether he was probably dead or not. The switching of tenses just to keep everybody happy was beginning to annoy him. ‘I take it Lance is the father?’

  Her nostrils flared and her piercing stare dropped a few degrees Celsius. She certainly wasn’t afraid of the law. ‘Course he is. What you take me for, some kind of slag?’

  ‘Just checking, Sally. Calm down. How did Lance feel about the baby?’

  ‘Very happy. We are both very happy. He’s looking forward to being a father. He’s already bought loads of stuff. All new and not cheap crap.’

  ‘Is that right? Where will you all live?’

  ‘When I’ve had the baby, with his mum. She’s got room. It’s just till the council give us a place of our own. We’re on the waiting list.’

  Romney tried some friendliness. ‘Is it a boy of girl?’

  ‘Girl.’

  ‘Got any names in mind? Actually, don’t bother answering that. I don’t think I’ll have heard of any of them. You must know Lance better than anyone else?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Did he have friends outside work? Somewhere that he often went? Interests?’

  ‘Lance played football twice a week. Five-a-side at the sports centre. He had drinking friends and old school friends.’

  ‘What about social networking – Facebook and that sort of thing?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did… does Lance have it?’

  She looked at him as though he’d asked her whether Lance breathed air. ‘Everyone has Facebook.’

  ‘No activity on his page since he went missing?’

  ‘Course not.’ She looked at him as though he was stupid.

  ‘No hint on his status updates that he might be going away, something that would explain his sudden disappearance?’

  She shook her head and her face hardened.

  Romney thought quietly for a moment. ‘Babies are expensive these days, aren’t they? All the stuff you need to get for them – pram, cot, furniture, clothes, toys, nappies. All the baby products. It never ends.’

  ‘Lance is a provider. I told you. We got most of what we need already.’

  ‘That’s good. Lance hasn’t got a job, has he? Hasn’t had one for a while, I understand.’ Sally became reticent. ‘Well, Sally? Has he?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t.’

  ‘So where did he get the money to buy all the baby stuff.’

  Sally hesitated before saying. ‘He signed on.’

  Romney snorted. ‘I know that’s not much. Barely enough to keep a young man in cigarettes and beer these days, let alone Internet-enabled smartphones.’

  ‘He had savings,’ she said, and there was some defiance there.

  Romney thought again that she was not one to be easily intimidated by the law. ‘Lance had savings and he spent it on buying baby stuff?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I can check that, Sally. I can get his mum back in here and ask her. I can request copies of his bank statements, payment records from when he was working, credit card bills, ATM records.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’ Her belligerence was beginning to irritate Romney but now it was touched with a hint of apprehension.

  Romney sat forward in his chair, planted his elbows on the table and rocked forward. ‘Because I don’t believe you.’ Sally opened her mouth and Romney held up a finger to silence her. When he spoke next his informal tone and his friendly expression had both been replaced by something harder. ‘Let me finish, Sally. And you’d better listen very carefully to what I’m going to say. I have a dead body to account for. It’s almost certainly Lance. That’s the truth, but you won’t ever be able to put your mind at rest with a last look at the father of your unborn child because there’s nothing left of him that’s recognisable. Lance was murdered, wrapped in plastic and dumped. My other colleague who you might have seen has just driven Lance’s mother to the nearest police station to provide a DNA sample. That’s the only way we’re going to know for sure.’

  She’d flushed a light red and her eyes glittered, but she remained obstinate. ‘So you don’t know for certain yet?’

  ‘Yes we do. We know because everything fits and because Lance was considerately wearing the same belt buckle in this photo,’ Romney held up the Missing Persons flyer, ‘when he was killed. What we need from DNA is legal confirmation. It’s just a necessary formality.’

  She glowered at him but said nothing.

  ‘My job is to find out who killed him. And I’m going to. Lance wasn’t working. Lance was drawing social. Lance didn’t have any savings put by so you can stop peddling that crap to me. I want to know what he was up to, who he was hanging out with and where he was going, and if there’s one person he would have told all that to it’s you. I can’t imagine him being able to keep anything from you.’ Sally’s eyes were brimming with tears. Her exposed neck showed her angry flush but the face, beneath the thick layer of foundation that covered her bad skin, simply turned a darker, dirtier shade of brown. She opened her mouth again, exposing teeth that were more like tools than jewels, and again Romney shut it for her. ‘I haven’t finished, young lady. Either you’re going to give me the information I’m looking for – and I want it now – or I can promise you a visit from some colleagues of mine searching for stolen baby goods. All yours will be taken away for examination and cross-referencing with lists of stolen property and when they find out that none of it has been stolen you’ll get it back. But don’t think it’ll come back pristine. The police don’t have the time or the inclination to take care. It’ll be scuffed and marked, maybe damaged and damp, stinking and spotted with mould. Some things might even get lost. Not very nice for a newborn baby and a proud mother.’

  A single fat tear slipped down her face. She remained stiff in the chair and made no attempt to wipe it away or disguise her hatred for him. Romney conceded a grudging admiration for her. He would later reflect that it was probably not his threats that had pus
hed her into giving him the answers he was looking for but the knowledge that Lance, the father of her unborn child – her provider – was dead – murdered – possibly by people he associated with. If she had not already and seriously contemplated the probability that she was on her own and expecting, she would be now. And for those responsible for her position she wanted some payback for being robbed of her unborn child’s father, her partner, her provider.

  ‘Well, Sally? Anything to assist the police with their enquiries?’

  ‘Can I believe you that he’s dead?’

  Romney turned to Fower and said, ‘Tell her.’

  Fower started like he’d been poked with something sharp while asleep. He’d been watching and listening to the two of them with rapt attention, his opinion of Romney’s methods swinging from appreciative to appalled. He realised that they were both looking at him with equal intensity. Romney was waiting to be backed up and Sally was waiting for confirmation of life-changing news. Fower managed to say, ‘It’s true, Sally.’ He wanted to add something else, some sympathy, some compassion, but Romney was already filling the void.

  ‘I’m not proposing to sit here all day, Sally. Either you’re helping me find Lance’s killers or you’re not.’

  ‘I don’t know who killed him. I’ve only just found out he’s dead, haven’t I?’

  ‘But you know what he’s been up to, who he’s been hanging about with, don’t you?’

  Sally hesitated and in doing so confirmed in both officers’ minds that she did.

  She breathed out heavily through her nose and looked down at the table. In a quieter voice, she said, ‘Before he went missing he made some money.’ She lifted her head and met Romney’s stare. ‘I don’t know where or how. But it was night work. Not regular. Not often. But he made cash in hand for it.’

  ‘What about the who, Sally?’ Who was he with?’

  Sally took her time before saying, ‘It was lads he played five-a-side football with.’

  ‘Names? Nights?’

  ‘I don’t know any names. That’s the truth. Football nights are Tuesdays and Thursdays. I knew he was up to no good and I told him I didn’t want to know.’

  Romney remained stern. ‘Anything else you can think of that might help us find out who did this to him?’