Blood Rites: A Detective Inspector Paul Snow thriller

by David Stuart Davies

  ‘Not sure. That’ll be up to you to ask, I reckon.’

  It was a bright October morning. The early mist had cleared and the sun was forcing its way through the clouds. Both ends of Lightfield Road had been cordoned off and a tent had been erected. The forensic team were swarming over the area like albino bees in their special clothing. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered, mumbling amongst themselves, stretching their necks in an attempt to catch some sensational element connected with the police presence.

  ‘Ghouls,’ observed Fellows as both men flashed their warrant cards at the constable on sentry duty and slipped under the tape and made their way into the tent. DS Cavanagh greeted them with a grim nod as they entered. ‘I think we’re just about finished here, sir,’ he said, indicating the body bag on the ground. Standing over it with a note book was Chris McKinnon, the forensic officer. ‘Morning boys,’ he said cheerfully.

  Why were these fellows always so damned jolly thought Snow as he knelt down and unzipped the body bag. A white contorted face stared back at him, with the lower part of the body rich in congealed blood, like a strange scarlet film lying over the clothing. It did not take an expert to see that this had been a violent and vicious attack. There was no doubt whoever had done this wanted the fellow Tindall dead.

  ‘What can you tell me?’ Snow asked.

  McKinnon shrugged. ‘Nothing special. A good number of stab wounds to the midriff, stomach sliced upwards for a several inches. Not expert but extremely effective. The killer was a determined fellow. As far as I can tell at this stage, the victim made no attempt to fight back. There’s no sign of a struggle. Too shocked, I guess. No bruises elsewhere and nothing under his fingernails to suggest he fought with his assailant. So it was sudden and, as he was facing the killer, something of a surprise. As to the rest: motive, identity of the culprit etc – the ball’s in your court. I doubt if an autopsy will tell us anything more that will be helpful.’

  ‘The weapon?’

  ‘A sharp instrument. Most likely a long knife. Possibly with a serrated edge, like a good kitchen knife. Not much help I know – but then I’m not a clairvoyant.’

  With a dramatic gesture, Snow zipped up the body bag. ‘Thanks anyway. Best get him out of here then.’

  Hume Royd was one of the labyrinthine streets on the homogenous Almondbury estate of post war council houses, built cheaply, quickly and inexpertly. These streets snaked and coiled, interlocking with each other, spreading for nearly a half a mile area of the district: a maze of house upon semi-detached house, all in essence looking the same; slums in embryo, thought Snow.

  The door to 3 Hume Royd was opened by a WPC whom Snow had seen around the station but did not know by name. She was young, sturdy and possessing a no-nonsense pugnacity about the eyes which would be very intimidating to the vulnerable. She admitted Snow and Fellows without a word.

  ‘We want to have a chat with Mrs Tindall,’ said Snow quietly. ‘How is she?’

  The WPC shrugged her broad shoulders and pursed her lips. ‘Bearing up remarkably well,’ she said, the reply heavy with implications. ‘She has a visitor with her at the moment…’

  Snow raised a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘It’s her priest, Father Vincent.’

  Snow pursed his lips. ‘I’m sure he’ll understand we need to talk…’

  Taking her cue, the WPC led them to the sitting room where Mrs Brenda Tindall was sitting on the sofa, leaning towards the orange glow of the gas fire, a mug of tea clasped in both hands. Sitting opposite her was a tall, lean man with short cropped hair, which was just beginning to speckle with grey. Snow thought that he had a kind ascetic face, ideal for his calling.

  ‘My apologies for interrupting,’ he said. ‘I am Detective Inspector Snow and this is my colleague DS Fellows. We need to have a few words with Mrs Tindall’.

  The priest leaned forward and touched Brenda Tindall on the shoulders. ‘Is that okay with you, my dear?’

  She glanced up at Snow and nodded. ‘It has to be done sometime,’ she said. Her voice was low but it did not waver.

  Father Vincent rose and extended his hand to Snow. ‘Father Vincent, Thomas Vincent from St Joseph’s’.

  Snow shook his hand and was surprised how cool it was, as though it had just come out of a refrigerator.

  ‘Brenda and Samuel are part of my flock.’

  ‘Maybe we could have a word later.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Father Vincent before leaving the room, accompanied by the WPC.

  Snow sat down across from Brenda Tindall in the same seat that had been occupied by the priest.

  ‘I am sorry to come bothering you at this distressing time, Mrs Tindall, but I need all the information I can get about your husband in order that we can apprehend the person who carried out this terrible deed.’ Snow hated these moments where, by a dreadful kind of necessity, he found himself slipping into police-speak, reciting the well-worn rhetoric as though using a cue card.

  ‘It has to be done sometime,’ Brenda Tindall said, repeating the phrase in a dull matter of fact fashion. She was a gaunt woman with a yellowish waxy skin. She was probably only about forty but looked older. What surprised Snow was the fact that it seemed to him that she had not been crying. There were no tell-tale signs around the eyes to indicate that tears had been shed. In fact her whole demeanour suggested that she had taken the terrible news of her husband’s demise in her stride. From experience, he knew that such shocking news affected people in different ways and it may well be that Brenda Tindall was in denial, unable to accept the truth that her husband was in fact dead – that he would not walk in through the door at any minute. Once the harsh truth had pierced this thin protective screen of self-delusion, the tears would flow.

  ‘Pardon the bluntness of my queries. There is no other way to get to the bottom of this matter and get there quickly’.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Have you any idea who might have had such hatred towards your husband that he would want to…’ Snow hesitated, not quite sure what was the best, least dramatic phrase to use here: ‘kill him’, ‘murder him’ or maybe ‘hurt him badly’. None were really that euphemistic. There really was no way of sweetening the brutal truth.

  Mrs Tindall helped him out: ‘To top him?’ she said flatly. ‘Not really. Sammy was not an easy man to get along with and I can’t say he had many friends – or any friends really, but I can’t think of anyone who felt strongly enough about him to want to murder him. It must be a random killing. A maniac with a knife. A druggie maybe. If you are seeking a motive…’ She gave a gentle shrug of the shoulders ‘… I can’t give you one. I can’t begin to think of one.’

  ‘You say he was not an easy man. What exactly do you mean?’

  ‘He was moody. You never quite knew which Sammy he would be each day.’

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘About fourteen years now, I reckon. You lose track.’

  ‘Was it a happy marriage?’

  To Snow’s surprise, Brenda Tindall laughed. ‘And how would you describe a happy marriage, Inspector? He didn’t bring me champagne and flowers and there were no roses around the door if that’s what you mean but… we rubbed along.’

  ‘You have no children.’

  She shook her head. ‘No… he… Sammy didn’t want them.’

  ‘What about you?’

  This questioned seem to puzzle her for a moment and then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said quietly and the first time there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. She leaned forward and placed her mug into the tiled hearth, as she did so the sleeve of her cardigan pulled back revealing her wrist and lower forearm. Snow noticed the dark marks there.

  ‘Your husband was at the working man’s club last night. Did he go there often?’

  ‘A couple of nights a week maybe.’

  ‘Did he take you?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A night out.’

  ‘It’s a working man’s clu
b. I’m not a working man.’

  Snow could see he was well and truly down the cul de sac now and the end was in sight.

  ‘Is there anything you could tell us that may help in our investigation, in our attempt to catch the man who… murdered your husband.’

  Mrs Tindall did not have to think before she replied. ‘No,’ she said. ‘As I said, it must have been a madman, one of these crazy folk you read about. No one we know or owt.’

  Snow rose from his chair. ‘Thank you, Mrs Tindall. We’ll leave you now but no doubt we’ll speak again. Do you have any friends or relatives who can stay with you for a few days to help you during this difficult time?’

  ‘I will be all right. I’ve rung my sister in Manchester. We’re not close but she’s going to get over here tomorrow, but I can manage.’

  Snow believed her. ‘It will be necessary for you to make a formal identification of the body in the near future. Do you think you will be able to cope with that?’

  ‘Of course.’ Was there a hint of a smile on that tired, waxen face? Snow thought so and the sight of it chilled him.

  In the hall, Father Vincent and the WPC were engaged in a casual hushed conversation. They broke off and turned to face Snow and Fellows.

  ‘All finished?’ enquired the priest.

  ‘For the moment, Father. You said that the Tindalls were part of your flock…’

  The priest nodded.

  ‘They were regular churchgoers?’

  Father Vincent smiled indulgently. ‘I’d hardly say that. In fact in these days we have very few ‘regulars’ in the sense that they attend all my services or become familiar faces in the congregation. It’s a sign of the times, I’m afraid. There are so many calls, temptations if you like, on people’s times these days. But the Catholic conscience catches them from time to time and obliges them put in an appearance.’

  ‘Is that what the Tindalls did?’

  Father Vincent hesitated a moment before replying. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘How well do you know the couple?’

  The priest’s shoulders rose in a gentle shrug. ‘Not well, at all. A casual conversation, nothing very deep. It is really moments like this, moments of crisis, when the priest is able to get close, is able to be of real help.’

  ‘Was it your impression that they were a happy couple?’

  The priest gave a wry grin. ‘Oh, it would, I think, be dangerous, inappropriate at least, to talk about my impressions. That’s not fact is it? Not evidence. Impressions don’t really count.’

  ‘They can point the way to the truth.’

  ‘Or elsewhere. In the opposite direction, for example. Tell me, Inspector, why do you ask?’

  ‘Impressions.’ It was now Snow’s turn to give a wry grin. ‘Mrs Tindall seems quite stoical about her husband’s death…’

  ‘Grief affects us in many ways.’

  ‘Indeed it does, but you usually get a sense of…imminent despair. The notion that they can’t or won’t believe what has happened. Mrs Tindall seems fully secure in her understanding that her husband has been murdered. It does not seem to have rocked her boat in any serious fashion. And then there are the bruises on her arm. To my eye they looked as though they were inflicted.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘Had you heard that perhaps Mr Tindall was a violent man? A violent man at home?’

  ‘It’s not within the parameters of my calling to deal in matters of rumour, Inspector. Shall we leave it at that?’

  ‘Did she raise the matter with you at all?’

  ‘If she did, that would have been a very private and confidential conversation.’

  ‘In the case of murder, nothing is confidential. Are you saying that Mrs Tindall admitted her husband’s violent behaviour towards her in a confessional?’

  ‘I am not saying that at all. It would be beyond my vows as a priest to say it. You should know that, Inspector. What transpires between a priest and a parishioner in the confessional is sacrosanct. That is the whole nature of the process.’

  Snow nodded. Although the priest was playing the clam, his prevarications had only strengthened his suspicions. ‘Thank you, Father,’ he said, politely. ‘We’d better be on our way.’

  ‘May God go with you and help you in your endeavours.’

  ‘Talk about brick walls, eh,’ muttered Fellows as they walked back towards the car.

  ‘Yes, well I’ve encountered the sealed lips of the clergy before. It’s nothing personal; they just believe it’s not their role in life to gossip.’

  ‘Gossip!’

  ‘Pass on rumours and impressions. But nevertheless, I reckon we can gather there was no real affection between the Tindalls and if my assumptions are right about those bruises, we may have a wife beater on our hands.’

  ‘Or on the slab in the morgue, to be precise.’

  Snow gave a bleak smile. ‘How absolute the knave is’.

  Bob Fellows, ignorant of the quotation, chuckled. ‘If you say so, sir.’

  ‘Well, that leads to a little job I’ve got for you. Have a chat with the neighbours roundabout. See what they have to say about the Tindalls, Sammy in particular. I’m sure they will not be as reticent as Father Vincent to spill any juicy beans. Get a taxi back to HQ.’

  ‘OK, sir.’

  ‘In the meantime, I’ll see what they have to say about our victim at the working man’s club. We’ll have a conflab over coffee in my office this afternoon. Wheels will be in operation for me to make a statement to the media. No doubt the telly folk will want something. Oh, how I hate those bloody circuses.’

  With a furrowed brow and a gloomy look, Snow got back into his car.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  ‘It’s not so much that the trail has gone cold, it was never really warm in the first place, sir.’

  It was a week later and Snow had been called into Chief Superintendent Clayborough’s office for a progress report on the Tindall investigation. Little had happened and there had been no real developments. The murder had been widely reported in the local press and on the regional television news programmes and briefly had made it into the national newspapers – somewhere around page six. As Snow explained to Clayborough, there were no indications as to motive and there was no one in the frame as the culprit. It seemed to have all the hallmarks of a random killing, as Brenda Tindall had observed, ‘made by one of those crazy people you read about.’

  Snow gave his boss a succinct but fairly comprehensive breakdown of the minutiae of the case. Clayborough appeared to listen intently, but Snow knew that he was merely following procedure in asking for this update. He was experienced enough to realise that when one was presented with a case like this – a mystery murder with no clues as to who committed it or why -there was little one could do but keeping turning over the meagre pickings one had until something turned up. And one had to hope that the ‘something’ was not another body.

  ‘Very well, Paul,’ Clayborough said at last when Snow had finished. ‘It’s a bit of a bugger, but I reckon you’re the best man to handle such a case. Any breakthrough, keep me informed.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Snow turned to go, but Clayborough sat forward in his chair, leaning on his desk, his arm raised in a gentle accusative gesture.

  ‘By the way, you’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’

  Snow raised a quizzical brow.

  ‘That lovely young lady you were with at the George the other night. You’ve kept her under wraps, haven’t you?’

  Snow did not know how to respond. He wanted to say, ‘Mind your own bloody business,’ but discretion easily conquered his growing irritation.

  ‘Is this serious?’

  Snow now wanted to punch him. ‘It’s… it’s early days, sir.’

  ‘I must say she looked rather too lovely to let go. Delightful girl. You know, Paul, I like my officers to be married. The home life that marriage brings gives a fellow a broader, a more perceptive view on life, on society, and as such make
s them a more effective officer. This is a tough old job. It can be a bitch at times and it is useful to have someone to go home to and soothe the old furrowed brow. There’s something about the security of marriage that gives one a cushion against the old slings and arrows. An empty house gives no solace. I’ve been married twenty three years and I’m sure I wouldn’t be where I am today, if I hadn’t had the love and support of my wife.’

  Snow gave what he hoped was an understanding nod. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  The two men looked at each other for some seconds before Snow moved infinitesimally towards the door.

  ‘Is that all, sir?’

  Clayborough gave a tight smile. ‘Yes, that’s all.’

  Taking the lift down from the top floor, Snow whispered as many foul expletives as he could, repeating ‘the fucking interfering bastard’ numerous times. Why did these bloody high ups think they had the power to interfere in the lives of their officers, like a bloody puppet master. The interview was a brutal reminder that the top brass kept their minions under close scrutiny at all times, even their personal life. With this in mind, Snow realised with unease, it was no wonder his secret had remained so. Or had it? Was Clayborough’s bluster about Matilda lightly just veiled encouragement - or warning, even - to legitimise his sexuality? He sighed heavily. Or maybe he was being paranoid again?

  By the time he reached his office, Snow was desperately trying to put the memory of his interview with Clayborough and its imagined repercussions out of his mind and return his mental focus back to the Tindall murder. He made himself a strong coffee and sat at his desk and began to review the case once more.

  It was now clear that Tindall was guilty of domestic violence. Although Mrs Tindall had revealed nothing, two of her neighbours had told tales of black eyes, a broken arm and sounds of fierce shouting and screams heard through the walls of the semi. Her doctor had also confirmed that she had been treated for injuries, the cause of which he regarded as suspicious, although he had no strong grounds for taking the matter further. Interviews with Sammy Tindall’s work colleagues and the shop floor foreman confirmed that he was moody and easily irritated, but that his aggression was restricted to abusive words and snarled expletives. Typical of the cowardly breed, it seemed, he reserved his violent outburst for the vulnerable and easily cowed: his wife. That, of course, as Bob Fellows emphasised with enthusiasm, gave Brenda Tindall a strong motive and placed her in the frame for murder. Snow knew he was right in theory but he was not convinced by this simplistic solution. The forensic evidence tended to provide a stumbling block for this theory anyway. The angle of the knife wounds entered the body indicated that the culprit was someone approaching six feet tall. Mrs Tindall was barely five foot four.