Burning Greed

by Diane M Dickson

“Nope, don’t think it is.”

  Charlie parked on the gravelled road. A couple of expensive bikes propped against a tree showed them where the cyclists who had found the body were sheltered.

  There was a blue plastic tent, telling them just where the body lay, near to the edge of the bank. A police photographer was videoing the area, stopping now and then to take a still picture. A few uniformed officers hung around, sheltering under trees, looking despondent. The rain was heavier, and they all knew it would be a fair while before they could get into the dry.

  The van from the morgue was parked further along and Simon Hewitt’s car nuzzled up behind it. Tanya’s stomach did a little flip as she thought about the last time she’d seen him and remembered Sue Rollinson’s comments.

  The complications in her life were piling up and she was going to have to get to grips with all of it. She clambered from the car, straightened her shoulders and walked as purposefully as possible given that every muscle was pleading desperately to climb into bed and lie down in the warm. She accepted a white paper suit, shoe covers and mask and with Charlie bringing up the rear they walked along the bank to make the acquaintance of Colin the Cartman.

  Chapter 41

  They stepped into the blue plastic shelter. Although there was still a little daylight, it was heavy and overcast. Floodlights had been deployed, a small generator humming in the grass. The greens and browns of the riverbank were stark and artificial looking in the harsh glare. Simon Hewitt glanced up from where he crouched beside the body. He turned off his dictating machine and took a few steps towards them. “Charlie. Tanya. Good to see you. I heard about your niece. Is that all sorted now?”

  “Yes, thanks. All sorted.”

  “Run away, had she?” He shook his head. “Who’d be parent to a teenaged girl?”

  “Well it wasn’t that simple, but you’re right, I wouldn’t have that job at any price.” She didn’t want to talk about this now. Right now, she wanted to crouch where he had been, examining this poor dead man who was dressed in wet, filthy rags, his toes visible through holes in the worn-out trainers.

  Simon Hewitt was obviously in the mood for a chat though, “Are you okay? You’re very pale.”

  “I’m okay thanks, Simon. It’s been a difficult couple of days.” She took a small step to the side, crouched beside the body. “So, what have we got here? Poor bloke. Not had a lot of luck, has he?”

  The medical examiner took the hint. He coughed and bent down beside her. “Right, yes. I believe we already have an identification?”

  Tanya nodded.

  “That was a stroke of luck. I have only just begun my examination and obviously I can’t tell you very much until I have him back in the morgue, but he’s probably late forties, maybe fifties. These people age quickly, a result of their circumstances obviously. He appears to be badly undernourished.”

  “Any idea what the cause of death might be? I know it’s early days but any chance it was natural causes, do you think?” Tanya asked.

  “Not unless a polythene bag over your head can be considered natural, no.”

  He held up an evidence bag. “Removed by the people who found him, there was no point really. Still, I suppose they meant well.”

  “What’s that in the bottom?” Tanya asked.

  “Glue. It’s on his face as well.”

  “So, it could have been an accident? He could have been sniffing?”

  “It’s a scenario yes, but there are these.” Simon Hewitt pointed to a line of red marks on Colin’s throat.

  “Are they fingermarks?”

  “I would say so. He may have sniffed the glue voluntarily, but I believe somebody held the bag over his head. The glue could be an attempt to put us off the scent. Of course, they may have helped us, we’ll get some information from those.” He turned to one of the assistants moving carefully around the little space. “Bag his hands now, would you? We might get something, though the nails are bitten down to the quick. Still, you never know.”

  “I reckon, we’d better get things moving,” Tanya said. She turned and walked out into the cold rain, pulled out her phone and dialled Bob Scunthorpe. She told him she was about to instruct the uniformed officers who were already there to start a local search, before the deluge had a chance to obliterate any more evidence. She asked for whatever extra help he could send. They agreed that the chances of this being a coincidence and not connected with Suzanne Roper were slight to none.

  “You’d better get the team in. The sooner we get on with this the better,” she said to Charlie.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What?” She glared at him as he spoke.

  “No, I just mean you do look dead on your feet. If you like I could take this. I know the drill, I’m up to speed. You could get a lift home. Get some rest. Take your pills. You could start fresh in the morning,” he said.

  “I’m fine, Charlie. Thanks, but I’m good.” She put her head back into the tent. “Thanks, Dr Hewitt. I’ll attend the post-mortem.”

  “I’ll get Moira to give you a ring. Tanya, take care you don’t look well.”

  She smiled at him and nodded, he was only being friendly. She turned to find Charlie, his eyebrows raised grinning at her. “Bloody hell, what is it with you lot?” She pushed past him and stomped up the path to talk to the now soaking officers whose shoulders slumped even further as they realised that a fingertip search on the wet riverbank was the only thing in their immediate future.

  “You know what to do and the sooner you get to it the better. This weather is not our friend. We are looking for anything at all. There will be evidence bags and marking tents in the SOCO van. Is everyone clear about how to do this?”

  They nodded at her with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

  “One thing, this man had a shopping trolley. All his worldly belongings were in there and it’s not with him. I can’t see him leaving it anywhere voluntarily so bear that in mind. It shouldn’t be hard to find,” Tanya said.

  “Unless it’s in there.” One of the young constables pointed at the grey, rain-speckled water.

  “Yes, there is that. We’re going to need divers, Charlie. Could you get onto that?”

  “I don’t expect there’ll be anything to find but we must look. Even though he hasn’t actually been in the river as far as we can tell, who knows what might have been thrown in. If the trolley was in there you would have thought there’d be floating debris but yes, we need the underwater team,” he said.

  She glanced back and forth along the road. “Bloody hell, if there were any tyre tracks here they’ll be mud pie by now. What a cock-up.”

  She climbed into the car and turned on her tablet computer. She might be tired and in pain but there was no way she was handing this over, not to Charlie, not to anyone. Colin the Cartman was hers and he was going to help her find who burned up the poor dead prostitute.

  Chapter 42

  After the round of ‘welcome backs’ and a couple of ‘how are yous?’ said in the tone that meant ‘you look terrible’ the team settled into what had become their usual places in the incident room. Tanya perched on the edge of the desk nearest to the noticeboards. She looked around at the familiar faces and grinned.

  She thanked them for what they’d been doing, told them she was glad to be back. It felt like a waste of time, mollycoddling grown-ups. But it was expected, and Charlie had already shown her what could happen if she put their backs up. She glanced at him. His face was unreadable, did he know this was all because of him and his warnings? Probably. She hated treading on eggshells and moved on as quickly as she could. Once it was done she got down to business. The death of Colin, and the brief preliminary findings at the crime scene were discussed and then she assigned tasks.

  “Kate, phones and collating. Oh yes, and before I forget, get in touch with that Freddy Stone bloke, I want him back in. Tomorrow. Half ten in the morning – okay?”

  She didn’t expect a comment from Dan but was surprised when P
aul didn’t defend their work. Maybe she’d got it right after all or maybe it was simply this latest development had them focused on the case, instead of their fragile egos.

  “The rest of us are going to find some of Colin’s acquaintances.”

  Kate glanced out of the window at the rain, which was now very heavy, she grinned and nodded. “Yes, boss.”

  There was sighing from the others, Paul muttered under his breath about it ‘bloody pissing down’, but she had expected it and knew that it meant little. It was a matter of honour with blokes like Paul to moan a bit.

  “It’s a good time to catch them. We need to do the hostels. Dan, Paul, do it together, will you? Kate will you get them a list, and while you’re doing that can you find out if there are any vans that go into the area, dishing up meals and drinks, that stuff. If there are we’ll probably need help from the uniformed branch to cover all of it.

  “You’d better make a start because we’ve got about three hours until they are all going to be bedded down, or out of their heads on cider, and we don’t want to try and talk to them then.

  “Charlie, Sue and I will make a start with the ones on the street. Okay? Anything you can get about his recent movements. We need to find out if he had said anything about the fire. He disappeared from his usual haunts – why? And, where was he? This could be a move forward and I don’t want to waste the momentum. If anything pops up, let Kate know immediately. Kate keep us all informed.” She looked at her watch. “It’s half five now. Give it to half-past nine and then call it a day unless we have something. Back in tomorrow by seven. Everybody okay with that?”

  “Do we have a picture of him, ma’am?” Dan asked.

  “We don’t yet. Kate, get on to the morgue? Ask them to send one to us as soon as possible. Something we can use to show around, so they’ll need to clean the poor bugger up a bit first. When it comes in, zap it through to all our phones. In the meantime, they mostly know each other anyway, and it’s not an identification enquiry. We know who he is. What we need now is to find out where he’s been since Thursday and why.” She glanced at the windows running with rain, turned back and grinned at them. “You might need your sou’westers. But look on the bright side, they’ll all be taking cover.”

  Leaving behind a chorus of low-level grumbling, Tanya walked into the office and lowered herself to her seat. Her painkillers were in the pocket of the leather jacket drying on the chair back. She popped open the box and stared down at the blister pack. It was so tempting. Anything to dull the throbbing in her injured arm and the constant complaint from bruised and overtired muscles. It had been bliss on the train. She sighed and slipped them back into her pocket. She’d take them later, for now a coffee would have to do. She couldn’t go out in the darkening streets, searching in shadowed corners and dingy alleyways with her wits dulled by drugs. She made the coffee strong and loaded up on sugar. It was a couple of hours that was all, she could do this.

  Afterwards she was going home to take a long, long shower and slide into her own bed. The mental image crumbled as she realised that she hadn’t spoken to Charlie about his accommodation. She couldn’t face entertaining a guest. If he was still at her house, is that what it would be? She puffed out her cheeks, blew air through her lips. When did life become so bloody complicated? When Fiona rang, that was when. Not for the first time in her life she roundly cursed her sister. It helped – a bit.

  Chapter 43

  They took Charlie’s car. Sue Rollinson’s old banger, a hand-me-down from one of her brothers, was only a two-door and it was rusted and dented. Although it wouldn’t look out of place where they were headed, it was not a good advert for the force.

  Tanya slid into the passenger seat, throwing her handbag into the rear beside Sue. From experience she checked first for baby toys but there were none. She wondered how Charlie was coping with not seeing his son on a daily basis but she wasn’t about to ask him personal questions with Sue sitting in the back seat. By the same token she wouldn’t ask him about his overnight plans. Would it really be that bad if he was still sleeping in her spare room? The poor bloke only had a half empty, deserted house to go back to. He knew about her injury, her aches and pains. Probably he wouldn’t expect her to play the hostess. She had enough to worry about without stressing over this. She pushed it aside. It would be what it was.

  They parked in The Castle Multi-Storey. It was close to the last known sightings of Colin and near the storage units. Outside, the rain didn’t show any signs of letting up. Sue pulled up the hood on her jacket and Tanya had to make do with turning up her collar. It seemed that she was fated to be soaked, cold, and uncomfortable.

  Charlie and Sue turned left towards the shopping centre and Tanya headed down the alley, past the site of the fire. The burned-out unit had been boarded up with sheets of chipboard. There was a ‘Danger – Keep Out’ notice nailed to the front. There was still crime scene tape at the entrances to the narrow road. She needed to get on to the fire officer and find out if it was safe for them to go in yet.

  The area was deserted, and after a quarter of an hour finding nobody, she called the others back to the car. “Let’s hope Dan and Paul have more luck at the hostels. This rain has sent everyone looking for shelter.”

  In the time since they left the car park, a small group had huddled, out of the rain, in a corner under the pedestrian footbridge.

  The three of them were recognised as police as soon as they arrived at the car park entrance. Of the six men and one woman huddled against the stone wall, three got up and walked away.

  Charlie took the lead, hands in his pockets, casual and non-threatening. “It’s okay, guys. We just need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  The older man in the group hawked and spat onto the pavement. Tanya felt Sue Rollinson tense beside her.

  Charlie was still speaking quietly to the three men. The woman sidled closer to one of the younger ones and placed a hand on his leg. They were suspicious and on edge but at least they weren’t drunk or spaced out on drugs, though they were passing a bottle back and forth.

  “We’re trying to get some information about Colin the Cartman.” Charlie waited, watching for any reaction. The four pairs of eyes stared up at him. “This one of his spots?”

  The older one coughed again. “What’s it to you?”

  “We wondered if you’d seen him around in the last few days? The beat bobbies said he’d disappeared. After the fire.” Charlie waved an arm in the direction of the entrance opposite.

  “Disappeared. We’re all disappeared,” the old bloke muttered. “Only time you see us is if you’re movin’ us on or looking for drugs. What’s he done anyway? Poor bloody sod.”

  Tanya leaned forward, looking the man in the eyes. “Why do you call him that?”

  “What?”

  “Why is he a poor sod?”

  “Huh, why do you think?”

  Wet, cold, hungry, dirty. Yes, it had been a stupid question. The man was speaking again, his voice a rough growl. “On top of everything else, poor bugger pushing that trolley around everywhere, collecting crap and carting it about. Pathetic.”

  Charlie leaned closer. “So, when did you see him last?” The only response was a shrug and another hawk and spit. They were going to have to go further if they stood any chance of getting them to say much more. They hadn’t wanted to mention Colin’s death. It was too much, too soon but it looked as though they wouldn’t have a lot of choice. It was impossible to know how they might react, they could clam up completely, afraid that there was to be an investigation and they would be involved.

  Sue stepped forward and held out a bag of toffees. The group in the corner just stared at her, until the woman reached out a grubby hand and thrust it into the bag. “Yeah, thanks. I like these.”

  “Here, have them. I’ve got another bag in the car.” Sue handed the sweets over and moved closer to lean against the wall. “So. Colin. Do you know where he’s been? Why he vanished?” she said.
<
br />   The girl turned down the corners of her mouth. “Just wanted leaving alone, didn’t he? He was gutted about what happened.”

  “Was someone not leaving him alone then?” Sue said.

  The older man butted in, “Well you’re not, are you? Harassing him. You should let him be. He didn’t have anything to do with that fire. No matter what you think.”

  Tanya shook her head. “We haven’t been harassing him. The patrol guys were keeping an eye out for him but that was all. We thought he might have seen something. We could hardly harass him when we couldn’t find him, could we?”

  “He was upset. The bloke’s a bit fragile anyway and he was freaked out by it all. Anyway, we don’t know where he is. And why don’t you leave him alone? Spend your time looking for whoever started that fire. He said he couldn’t trust you lot to do the job, not with the girl being what she was.”

  “When did he say that? I thought you didn’t know where he was,” Tanya said.

  “I don’t. This was straight after. He was rambling on about it, about the law and justice. He’d lost it a bit, she was a sort of friend to him, it shook him up. I reckon he used to be clever – before he went to pieces. Anyway, he wasn’t impressed with you lot.” The man had bent to pick up a backpack sitting on the damp pavement. The others shifted, and looked back and forth at each other – they were losing them.

  “And none of you have any idea, yourselves?” Tanya said.

  “About what?” The girl asked.

  “About who started the fire?”

  Without another word, the group rose from their damp seats, turned and walked away.

  “Shit.”

  “Can’t we take them in?” Sue said.

  “What for?”

  “Well, withholding information.”

  Tanya shook her head. “We don’t know that they are. Anyway, it’d get us nowhere and it would antagonise them. Once we’re ready to release the news about Colin we’ll come back. If they hear what happened to him, we might have more luck. It’s not a total bust. Sue, ring Kate, tell the lads to call it a night. I think we’ve got all we could have hoped for, to be honest. Come on, Charlie can drop you back to pick up your car.”