Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2)

by Oliver Tidy

  ‘Yes. Odd wasn’t it?’

  *

  The pathology laboratory was now located in the basement of a new larger forensic facility adjacent to Dover Police Station. The building and the services it provided served several of the surrounding police authorities.

  Maurice Wendell was already engaged in the autopsy of Phillip Emerson’s corpse when Romney arrived. Romney tapped on the large window that divided the tiled easy-clean area, where bodies were turned into macabre jigsaws, from the carpeted ante-room. Wendell waived him in.

  Wearing regulation blue plastic shoe coverings, Romney rustled into the artificially cooled room. Only the temperature was a pleasant relief from the rising heat of the day. The familiar smells of butchery and cleaning products hit him and for the second time in half a day he felt a disturbance in his gut. As was his custom, Romney positioned himself well away from the business concerning the pathologist.

  ‘Not done with him yet, as you can see. I’ve sent blood samples to toxicology. Unless they show anything out of the ordinary in his system i.e. he was poisoned to death before someone did this to him, then I think we can safely say that it was a blow to the head that did for him. Couldn’t say which one exactly. Could be any one of about fifteen at a rough count.’

  Romney’s stomach twitched again. ‘I just want confirmation on a couple of identifying features. Nothing above the neck.’

  All three marks and his height tallied with what the woman, who Romney was now quite sure was Phillip Emerson’s widow, had volunteered.

  ‘Something interesting in all this,’ said Wendell, beckoning the DI over.

  Romney steeled himself for closer proximity to the smashed head.

  The pathologist retrieved a sealed plastic bag from the counter behind him. He held it up for Romney to inspect. ‘It’s a thread of fabric. Red. It had been driven deep into the skull, deep into the brain in fact, by the force of a blow. Imagine that the thread is laying across the crust of a loaf of bread and you drive something like a blunt hatchet into the loaf.’ The man illustrated his point with a chopping action. ‘The hatchet isn’t sharp enough to cut the fabric, just push it down ahead of itself as it penetrates the crust. That’s how this was lying across the surface of the victim’s head when he was struck. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I take it you have a theory for how it came to be there?’

  The pathologist smiled. ‘It would be possible that the victim was blindfolded, that this thread was part of a larger piece of material. And that when the assailant, or assailants, had finished bludgeoning him to death they removed the blindfold leaving behind this strand. Easy to have missed it in the darkness.’

  Romney nodded his following. A thought occurred to him. ‘At the golf club you said we could be looking for more than one weapon.’

  ‘You are. I’m sure of that now. The range of blows indicates both sharp edged and blunt instruments were used.’

  ‘Golf clubs?’

  The pathologist paused, considering. ‘Entirely possible. Plausible in fact. Fitting too. There’s something else. If you were at risk of being attacked by a person, or persons, wielding, let’s say, golf clubs you’d get your hands up to protect yourself. Yes?’ The pathologist raised his arms to emphasise his point. Romney noticed a trace of something fly off the medical instrument the man was holding to land somewhere on the floor behind him. ‘There is no sign of the victim receiving any blows to his hands or his forearms. No bruising at all.’

  ‘So he didn’t see it coming?’

  ‘Or he was already unconscious, drugged for example. Or blindfolded.’

  ‘Any other signs of a struggle?’

  ‘The only injuries I have found so far are consistent with the beating.’

  *

  Marsh ran into Detective Sergeant Wilkie in the evidence room, a windowless, stuffy space that was at once made that much smaller by Wilkie’s presence. He had his back to her, chatting. She took a deep breath and hoped he’d ignore her. She asked for Emerson’s phone and out of the corner of her eye saw Wilkie turn.

  ‘Here she is,’ said Wilkie. ‘Still flavour of the month, I see. Woman who’s responsible for me being out in the wilderness.’

  Marsh ignored him and waited while the uniformed sergeant searched for the phone and arranged the paperwork for her to sign.

  ‘Tell me, Sergeant Marsh, why do you think he prefers you to me?’

  Not long after Marsh had arrived at the station, some months before, Wilkie had gone on paternity leave, which he had been forced to extend by arrangement with his employers when his wife had suffered post-natal complications. Since Wilkie’s return, Romney had regularly favoured Marsh over him when he needed a sergeant. Wilkie was taking it badly. He had his career mapped out. He wanted to make DI himself in a few years. Romney’s preference for Marsh kept Wilkie away from cases and opportunities that would get him noticed, provide his CV with valuable credits, credits that were few and far between in a parochial police outpost like Dover’s. His resentment and accompanying hostility were like an aggressive cancer, spreading to infect his interaction with Marsh at every opportunity.

  Marsh turned a weary gaze on the officer who had once been Romney’s first choice. She said, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’ His glare was intense and his voice carried a barely concealed menace, qualities that had helped to give him a reputation as an effective interrogator.

  ‘Maybe he can expect more from me than he can of you.’ She regretted the words as soon as they were out.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’re right, love,’ said Wilkie, smiling without any trace of humour. ‘I’m quite sure he can expect things from you that I can’t possibly be expected to give him.’ The innuendo couldn’t be clearer, even if he’d drawn pictures.

  ‘Like thorough and hard work; a reasoning outlook, logical assessment, an enquiring objective mind?’ The stopper was out, so she might as well get it over with. It had been coming for a while.

  Wilkie kept his composure. ‘I mean more personal things.’ He moved in closer, put his fist to his mouth and moved his tongue in and out of his cheek.’

  Marsh felt the flush rising up her neck threatening to humiliate her in front of this anachronism. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘you’re jealous. Maybe you just need to work on your technique, Sergeant Wilkie.’

  Wilkie took another step closer, the lecherous grin curdled on his face. Raw malice flared in his eyes.

  ‘Knock it off you two,’ said the uniformed sergeant, a man senior to both of them. ‘Go and swing your handbags outside.’ The comment stung them both into an awareness of their inappropriate and unprofessional conduct.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ said Wilkie, quietly, as he brushed past her and out of the door.

  ‘Take my advice,’ said the sergeant, when the door had shut, ‘give him a wide berth for a while. He’s only going to make trouble for himself acting like that. Don’t let him suck you in to whatever mess he wants to make of his career.’

  Marsh blew out her cheeks. ‘Easier said than done upstairs. But thanks. I know you’re right.’ She smiled at the man. ‘It’s not like I’ve deliberately set out to be his rival.’

  The sergeant leant his elbows on the counter. ‘Maybe not, but you are whether you like it or not. He’s afraid. Probably that you’re right about what the DI sees in you over him. He’s not the sharpest DS I’ve seen in my time here, but he has aspirations and he’s not so stupid that he doesn’t see what a threat you are to them. Watch him.’

  *

  Romney stood at the front of the CID meeting room. Behind him, on the white dry-wipe board that covered most of the wall, printed colour images of the murder scene – landscape and portrait – had been fixed. The DI picked up a marker pen and removed the lid. There were three other officers in the room: Marsh, Grimes, and Superintendent Falkner.

  Romney wrote up the name Phillip Emerson and underlined it twice. ‘We’re as sure as we can be without his face
that he is our victim. His wife provided us with certain identifying marks that tally with the body, his wallet was found at the scene, the height of the victim corresponds with the height Mrs Emerson gives for her husband and a distinctive piece of jewellery was recovered from the body that has been identified by the widow as belonging to her husband.

  ‘Toxicology reports indicate that the victim had no unusual substances in his body that could lead us to believe that he was drugged before the assault. Just a lot of alcohol. His death resulted from several forceful blows to the head. It is likely that more than one weapon was used in the assault, which suggests that more than one person was involved.’

  ‘How many weapons?’ said Superintendent Falkner.

  ‘At least two is all we can say at the present time, sir. It is quite possible we are looking for golf clubs. It ties in with the nature of the injuries and the setting. It appears to have been a frenzied attack.’

  ‘And premeditated?’ said Falkner.

  ‘Probably, given the circumstances. No golf clubs were found at the scene and nothing else that would have inflicted the injuries sustained. We are widening the search to radiate outwards from the scene as well as organising a search of the base of the cliffs. It’s a possibility that Emerson’s murderer, or murderers, simply flung them into the sea. Personally, I don’t think that we’ll find anything, but we have to look. When you consider that Emerson was out there in the middle of the night – and it’s a car journey to get there – whoever went to the trouble of setting it up probably would have made plans for disposing of the weapons used.

  ‘DS Marsh will be going through the recent contacts of the deceased’s mobile phone. We need to find out who was in his life in the hours before his death. Who did he have a high number of calls with? Who are his close associates? And from them we might be able to find out whether he had any enemies.’

  ‘He certainly had at least one,’ said Grimes.

  Romney frowned in his direction.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Marsh. ‘But not necessarily.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Romney.

  ‘There could be circumstances under which he was killed without malice aforethought.’ As the long moment’s silence pressed in upon her Marsh began to regret her input.

  Eventually, Superintendent Falkner said, ‘For example?’

  ‘Well, sir, it was dark. We don’t know yet what he was doing out there. He might have interrupted something.’

  ‘You mean while taking a casual stroll in the dead of the night around a deserted golf course in the middle of nowhere after clambering over a barbed-wire topped fence, as you do?’ said Grimes. ‘And don’t forget, we found no means of transport for him at the scene. He had to get there somehow.’

  ‘Or it could just be a case of mistaken identity, or self-defence, or a spur of the moment assault,’ she went on quickly, giving voice to all the random possibilities she could think of.

  ‘You’ve made your point,’ said Romney, although he didn’t look particularly impressed. ‘We can’t rule out anything at this stage. Interesting choice of setting, whichever way you choose to look at it. The thirteenth hole is the closest part of the course to a public highway, so that could explain why that particular area, but why the golf course at all, and why the green? It could be relevant – a statement or a message. Something else to think about. We’re sure that is where entry was gained to the course, anyway.

  ‘The only piece of evidence recovered from the scene so far that is at odds with it is a thread of red fabric. This was found buried inside the deceased’s head and was almost certainly driven in by one of the blows. The pathologist suggested it might be a thread from a blindfold, but it’s just an idea. There is no complementary evidence to suggest that he was there against his will. Another visit to the golf course might be useful. About the only thing the wife did give away about his life was his love of golf. Golfers tend to stick together socially. It’s a social game.’

  ‘I’m with Mark Twain on golf,’ said Falkner. ‘It’s a good walk spoiled.’ A ripple of polite amusement followed. ‘I think you’re right though, Tom. That’s possibly where you’ll find his closest friends, the people who knew him best, especially as he had a position at the club.’

  ‘The wife claims she doesn’t know of any enemies her husband has made, but then she also claims to know very little about his life anymore. Apparently, they co-existed under the same roof for a number of years for the sake of their son. Having seen the property, I can imagine how that would not have been difficult. According to her, each led a life quite separate and private from the other outside the home.

  ‘There is just one child: William, eighteen. Recently finished his ‘A’ levels and is expecting to go to university in the next intake. He wasn’t at home last night. His mother claims not to know where he was. DS Marsh will find him and have him come in for a chat. For now mother and son is as far as I think we need to involve any family members, but that might change as our enquiries progress depending on who else, if anyone, has featured prominently in his life.’

  ‘What about the man who found him?’ said Falkner.

  ‘Nothing obviously suspicious about it, or him. Claims not have known the victim. Just wrong place wrong time.’

  ‘What did Emerson do for a crust?’ said Falkner.

  ‘Phillip Emerson ran a light-haulage business. Several lorries with offices on the industrial estate. Judging by his home he must have been doing rather well out of it. Top priority is where he was last night, or where he was supposed to be and who with. And we need to find his car.’ Romney checked his paperwork. ‘A black Range Rover HSE Sport. This year’s model. The widow gave the impression that it wasn’t unusual for him to stay out all night, we need to find out where he regularly stayed when he was absent.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’ said Falkner.

  ‘Likely, I suppose,’ said Romney. ‘Again, something else I’m confident we’ll uncover as soon as we’ve sifted through his phone records and had a chat with the people who knew him.’

  ‘Well, I can see you have plenty to be getting on with,’ said the senior officer, satisfied and getting to his feet. ‘It’s an ugly business. There’ll be a lot of publicity, I imagine, given the circumstances and the location. Press and the public love this kind of thing. The more mysterious and gruesome the better. How sick we are.’

  ***

  4

  ‘Hello, Brian’

  ‘Can I have a word, sir?’

  Romney glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll have to be a quick one.’

  Wilkie stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. He came to stand in front of Romney’s desk. ‘I want to join the team for the Emerson murder, sir.’

  Romney slung his pen onto the paperwork he had been poring over and lent back in his chair. ‘Sit down, Brian. How’s the wife now?’

  Wilkie sat. ‘Much better, thank you, sir.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re both well.’

  ‘Good. Good,’ said Romney. ‘And how are things going with The Parking Medal Man?’

  Wilkie flinched at the mention of the nick-name that the local press had dubbed Dover’s self-appointed champion of pedestrians’ interests. In the previous two months The Parking Medal Man was believed to have been responsible for causing damage to over thirty vehicles in and around the town centre. These were vehicles that had been parked overnight, or had been temporarily left unattended, to obstruct footpaths and pavements. The moniker of the mystery character, if indeed it was only one person – there was growing speculation that others who shared the viewpoint of the individual had taken to imitating his actions as the publicity and debate around the crusader’s unique form of protest grew – was the ‘medal’ that was left impressed on the metalwork of the vehicles. This was a circular impression, probably caused by a strong blow with a common hammer.

  The local press were portraying The Parking Medal Man as a mixture of super-hero and folk-devil. I
t was Wilkie’s opinion that he was simply some disturbed individual with an acutely misplaced and inflated vigilante tendency and nothing better to do than go around causing criminal damage to other people’s property.

  To fuel the mysterious nature of this vandal, in the dozens of incidents reported, no one had claimed to have seen a possible suspect. To Wilkie’s great frustration even the numerous CCTV cameras situated around the town had failed to provide an image that could offer a clue to the identity of the nutcase, despite the fact that several vehicles had been damaged within their fields of view.

  As an investigation to be leading it had become humiliating. The local press, in an otherwise slow-news period, had latched on to the attacks. They had taken to featuring fresh incidents as they occurred, encouraging victims to report to them directly. This inflated a story that, to Wilkie, was essentially nothing more than low-level criminal damage, out of all proportion to create a local news phenomenon which had become a conversation topic wherever he went. There was little sign of interest flagging.

  The press of this news outpost of the country were no less manipulative and self-servingly selective than their grander national cousins. The local newspaper featured photographs of victims with their damaged vehicles along with their comments and stories. Those that the rag chose to feature as ‘prey’ of The Parking Medal Man were naturally selected to maximise public interest, reaction and sympathy. There was the struggling single-parent mother of a sick infant who claimed to have only blocked a pavement briefly in order to visit a chemist to collect urgent medication for her child. Then there was the seventy-four year old arthritic widow who, after being unable to find a parking space near the shops – after claiming to have made three circuits of the surrounding roads – parked across a narrow pedestrian thoroughfare. To ‘balance’ the public’s feelings of wrong and right regarding the vigilante’s actions the paper also printed verbatim the inflammatory arrogant comments of a wealthy local businessman’s wife who clearly held scant regard for the rights of pedestrians and the angry egotistical reaction to becoming a victim of a similarly obnoxious youth who appeared to feel he could park his souped-up family hatchback complete with racing trim wherever he liked.