They didn’t make it to the door before Burton saw them out of the corner of his eye and called over, ‘When you’re there,’ he said, ‘could you also show the residents the clothing Mr Jackson was wearing? I believe we now have individual photos of each article, and we wouldn’t want to scare the life out of them by showing a picture of his dead body, would we? See if they recognise any of it. Maybe one of the items he was wearing could be theirs? Anything at all. Thanks.’
And with that they said, ‘Yes, boss,’ in unison and exited the room, anticipating a long day ahead.
Detective Constables Wayman and Summers also anticipated a long day ahead. Knowing time was against them, they quickly settled down to the task in hand by collating all the telephone numbers of the major newspapers and TV news stations. Then, contacting each in turn, they emailed across Alex Carruthers’s photograph. They finally finished at one-thirty, well ahead of the deadline they’d given themselves of two o’clock.
Shortly after they’d finished and Burton was complimenting them on their outstanding efforts, Fielding’s phone rang in her back trouser pocket. She glanced at the screen; she was a bit dubious about answering withheld numbers at the best of times on her personal mobile, but curious as to who was calling her, she slid the green ‘accept’ button across and put the phone to her ear.
‘Hello, Detective Sergeant Sally Fielding.’
‘Well, hello stranger!’ an unfamiliar woman’s voice said.
Fielding didn’t recognise the voice of the person now speaking, but the woman seemed to know exactly who she was. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘but I don’t…’
‘That’s okay!’ the unknown person interrupted, laughing as she said it. ‘I didn’t expect you to remember. After all, it has been well over ten years since we last saw one another. It’s Claire… Claire Rawlins… we were at school together, well just the last two years really. Remember?’
On hearing the name, recognition set in. ‘Claire,’ Fielding said in surprise, ‘yes of course I remember. How on earth did you find me after all this time?’
‘I got your details from Dr Barnes the medical examiner. Thought I recognised the name when I saw it on the card you gave him. You’re using your middle name now, I see?’
‘The medical examiner?’ Despite now knowing exactly who her caller was, Fielding was confused as to how the Dr Barnes she’d seen in the care home could possibly know an old school friend of hers, who she hadn’t seen since before she went off to police college. ‘How do you know Dr Barnes?’ she asked.
‘I’m in Manchester, working in the coroner’s office; doing a secondment down here from the north east. How uncanny is that? First job I’m working on and I meet up with an old friend. Who’d have thought it!’
‘Yes,’ Fielding agreed. ‘Who would have thought it?’
‘Anyway, the reason why I’ve officially called you is,’ Claire continued, getting back on track, ‘not to simply have a chinwag with a long-lost school mate. It’s to let you know that the tests Dr Barnes did last night are back from the lab and he’d like you and your partner – is it Burton? – to come down and discuss them with both of you. I told him that I’d ring you and give you a surprise!’
‘I appreciate that, Claire,’ Fielding thanked her. ‘The detective inspector and I will come straight down. And,’ she added, remembering what Rawlins had asked her earlier, ‘in answer to your question, yes, I’m now using my middle name!’
‘Tannin poisoning?’ Burton asked, looking across at Fielding. ‘A gradual or large dose of it?’
They were sitting in Dr Barnes’s private office in the coroner’s office within the Royal Exchange Building on Cross Street.
Claire Rawlins had been sitting waiting for them at reception, and got up when they arrived. Fielding was glad she had, because she had to confess she wouldn’t have recognised Claire Rawlins after all that time. After a brief greeting and introduction to her DI, Fielding and Burton were taken through to the medical examiner’s office on the second floor. Now they were sitting across the table from both of them.
‘Well, it looks like both,’ Barnes had to admit. ‘When I checked Mr Jackson, I saw that he had a fair amount of abdominal swelling and a yellowing of the whites of his eyes – all symptoms of hepatic necrosis.’
‘Which is?’ Burton asked, unfamiliar with the name.
‘Liver failure,’ Claire said, offering her medical knowledge. Fielding could have never imagined her to be the type of person to go into medicine, let alone end up working in a coroner’s office with all the ensuing gore. As she recalled, she was the one girl in school who fainted every time she saw a spot of blood, so picturing her up to her elbows in the stuff was difficult.
‘But what made you think that it was other than natural causes?’ Fielding asked Barnes.
‘Well, Dr Morton and I were discussing Jackson’s medical history just before you came into his room yesterday evening, and it seems that there was no history of problems with his liver. Hepatic necrosis can also be caused by HIV medication, but as Mr Jackson was not receiving any of those medications, it seems fair to assume that this was neither natural nor accidental.’
‘So he was poisoned then?’ Burton was jotting everything down in his notebook. ‘And you say both gradual and large doses of tannin had been administered?’
‘I took samples of his hair,’ Dr Barnes went on to say, explaining the science behind his conclusion, ‘and they showed that he had been receiving small doses of it for the past few weeks. Then it looks like he had a massive dose on the day of his death.’
‘So how would this be administered then?’ More jotting down in Burton’s notebook.
‘I think it fair to assume by injection. Little at first, so as to not look suspicious, then a very large injection on the day.’
‘So do you think that this was done by one of the members of staff, or Dr Morton even?’ Fielding had learned over the years not to trust anyone, especially in a case of murder, so the home’s own doctor couldn’t be ruled out as a suspect from their enquiries.
‘Well that’s a possibility, I suppose,’ Dr Barnes contemplated, ‘but that’s not for me to say. He certainly wasn’t holding anything back with regard to Jackson’s medical history. It could even be one of his regular visitors if this was something that had been planned over a long period of time. The man was diabetic, so any needle marks on the body would be seen as sites of injection and nothing more thought of it. Can I just say,’ he added, ‘as this is now a case of murder, that I’ve never heard of anyone being deliberately poisoned with tannin before. Surely if someone was going to kill by injection, then the easiest way would be by giving them an overdose of insulin. Very deadly to non-diabetics as well as diabetics, and untraceable in the body after a short while. Why then bother to use tannin, especially when it will be found? It’s certainly an obscure one.’
‘In that case, it looks as if the tannin has some sort of significance, like the playing card. Mr Jackson only had one visitor, his nephew, and we’re trying to find him right now as a person of interest.’ Burton paused for a second or two before asking, ‘And what did you make of his clothing?’ Hoping that perhaps the ME could throw some light on that aspect of the case as well.
‘Now that one beats me too,’ Barnes confessed. ‘They’re definitely not his as they’re not his size, in fact they’re all different sizes. But perhaps they belong to someone else in the home? Either way, it doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense. Why would he put the clothes on himself? Or why would someone else dress him like that?’
‘By the way,’ Barnes continued, ‘did you manage to get any prints from the card found at the scene?’
‘The SOCOs found a partial print on it,’ Burton told him, ‘but as it’s so small, they’re saying it will be difficult to trace.’
‘We must meet up sometime,’ Claire had said to Fielding when they were all together in the lift heading back down to reception. She handed her a card with her mobile
number on it. ‘I’m only here for a short while, staying with a friend. We should get a drink one evening.’
‘I’d like that.’ Fielding slipped the business card into her warrant card holder and promised that she would get in touch.
‘If it wasn’t the nephew visiting Jackson in the home,’ Fielding said when she and Burton were seated in the car and driving back to headquarters, ‘then whoever was impersonating him could have been giving him the poison.’
‘Seems feasible to me,’ Burton replied, keeping his eyes on the road, ‘but to what end?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Fielding admitted. ‘But he seemed to know a lot about Jackson’s medical history, knew about him being diabetic, which would have made the administration of it a lot easier. We should go through the staff statements again and see if anything stands out, now that we know we’re investigating a murder. In reality, anybody there in the care home could have given him it, including the nephew.’
After a pause, Burton turned to his partner and said, ‘Did I detect that you didn’t seem too happy to be seeing your old school friend Claire Rawlins again?’
‘Well, you always were a good detective!’ she laughed. ‘To be honest, the last two years at school weren’t the happiest. As you know, my dad died and my mother and I just sort of drifted apart after that, when she knew that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and join the force. She’d said the force had killed him and said it would kill me too, and we just sort of stopped speaking after that. My elder sister wasn’t all that helpful either, saying that I should go out and get myself what she called a “real job”. I don’t know how she dared…’ her voice trailed off. Even after fifteen plus years, the memory of her father’s death still weighed heavily on her mind.
‘And Claire?’ he asked.
‘Claire was all right, really. Moved to my area from further up north for the last two years when I was doing A-levels. We kind of hit it off, and she seemed to understand what I was going through. Made a point of befriending me, as I recall. Couldn’t stand the sight of blood, though, which is why I’m very surprised by the choice of career she made!’
‘And now she’s back in your life again.’
‘But only temporarily it seems. Didn’t she say she was only down here for a few weeks?’
‘So, will you be going for that drink then?’ He knew that, like himself, Fielding was a loner up to a point. Like him, she’d been in a relationship which had turned sour over time. It was probably why they’d hit it off so well from the start. Something in common between them. He also knew that when a chance came to see an old friend and catch up, that chance should be taken.
‘What are you now, my keeper?’ She laughed and he joined her. ‘Yes, maybe I will,’ she said at last, adding, ‘just to shut you up!’
There was silence in the squad room when Fielding and Burton returned in a more serious frame of mind and announced the fact that they now had a murder on their hands. They both knew what that would mean to everyone, especially coming hot on the heels of the one they’d literally just solved. Nature of the job, Burton had told them, but he knew that they were already aware of that fact. The only thing was, none of them had expected a murder enquiry again so quickly after the last one.
However, luck was on their side in one respect. After Alex Carruthers’s face had been all over the front pages of all the nation’s evening newspapers, and on all the main news channels at 6pm, the police received the call they’d been hoping for. Alex Carruthers rang them at 6.45pm.
5
‘I haven’t seen my uncle… well, my great-uncle as he really is… for almost two months now.’ Alex Carruthers explained over the telephone.
‘So you’ve no idea who could have been going to the care home to see him, saying that they were you, then?’ DI Burton asked him, sensing that, despite all their efforts to find the man, it looked as if it had all come to nothing.
‘Not at all,’ Carruthers replied. ‘Uncle Nate knew that I’d be working away for a few months; he had my number to call me if he needed to, as did the home.’
‘Yes, we got your number from the manager and left a voicemail on your mobile for you to call us.’
‘I haven’t received any calls, detective. Sounds like they’ve given you the wrong number.’
‘Does it end in 465?’ Burton asked, double-checking the number in his notebook, becoming a little concerned, and mostly irritated by the fact that the nephew, or rather, great-nephew, seemed to be so detached from the reality of his relative’s death.
‘No, that’s not my number.’
Exasperated, Burton decided to end the call, asking Carruthers to come into the station first thing on Saturday when he arrived back in Manchester. But before signing off, he asked where exactly it was that Alex worked during the week.
‘I’m working up in Newcastle at the moment,’ he told him. ‘The company I work for has just opened a branch up here and I’m helping to set-up their computer systems and training staff to use the new programmes.’
As perhaps to be expected, Alex Carruthers’s photograph, plastered all over the media the previous evening, had initiated a flood of calls to the station from both newspaper and television companies alike. They all wanted to know why there was such an urgency to locate the man, and all wanted to get the scoop on a potential story ahead of the rest. There was big money in news, especially for the reporters who managed to get the story first.
What bothered DI Burton now was the fact that the care home staff had provided the sketch artist with a face quite different to that of the deceased’s great-nephew.
Sitting at his desk trying to finish a sandwich that he’d quickly grabbed from the station canteen, Burton looked at the well-drawn face now looking back at him from the open file on his office desk.
‘Who are you?’ he said, staring at the picture and hoping for an answer, knowing that none would be forthcoming. Although it was definitely not the face of the somewhat detached Alex Carruthers, he looked about the same age as him and he could see how anyone giving him a fleeting glance at the home could have easily mistaken him for the real great-nephew. The hairline was different, and designer-stubble had been added to the sketch, but there wasn’t that much of a difference really. There was no reason at all why he wouldn’t have been let in if he’d said he was Carruthers.
The knock on the door pulled him back to reality. ‘Come in!’ he shouted, and DS Fielding popped her head around the corner of it.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ she said, looking as if someone had just kicked her in the teeth. ‘There’s been another death.’
‘At the home?’ he asked, rising from his desk and grabbing his jacket from the hook on the back of the door. The rest of his sandwich would just have to wait. Pity, it wasn’t that bad either, which was something of a miracle for the station canteen.
‘No,’ she said, leading the way along the corridor. ‘But another team of detectives have alerted us to it; say they’ve found something at the scene similar to what we found in Jackson’s room.’
‘Did they say what?’
‘No,’ Fielding replied. ‘But said we should get over there pretty quickly, though.’
Foxfield Road Allotments were just north of Manchester Airport, and by the time Burton and Fielding pulled up in his car, the lane leading down to the scene of crime had already been cordoned off with the blue and white police barrier tape which they’d now seen a bit too much of in the past two days. A feeling of déjà vu set in when they saw a solitary constable posted beside it. All the scene lacked was a crowd of people around him. Doubtlessly, that would follow as soon as the word got about.
‘How on earth can there be any similarity between this and the home?’ Burton said to his partner after they’d alighted from the car and looked around them. This was desolate by comparison to the bustling care home, and one had nothing remotely in common with the other.
‘Down the lane, sir. About a hundred yards,’ the constable said to the
m, lifting the barrier for them to duck under. As instructed, they ducked and followed the muddy dirt track lane past hedgerows and an assortment of what looked like improvised fences, while at the same time trying to dodge the pools of mud and dirty water following the previous night’s heavy rainfall.
Burton could feel his feet becoming damper the further they went along, and made a mental note to himself to always carry a pair of wellingtons in the boot of his car in future. Fielding looked as if she was dancing, skipping over each puddle as she came to it. I bet she doesn’t have wet feet, Burton thought, watching her continue along in her own rhythmic way. She definitely had a pattern going to avoid them.
Soon they could see a group of people ahead of them. The SOC team in their familiar white coveralls were already on the allotment, bending over and examining anything they thought may be of interest, and another uniformed constable was talking to two non-uniformed people, a man and a woman, who Burton presumed were the detectives who had contacted their office.
‘Detective Sergeant Fielding?’ One of the non-uniformed officers approached them, hand outstretched in Fielding’s direction. ‘We spoke on the telephone, I’m Detective Sergeant Montgomery from the Salford division, and this is Detective Constable Allenson.’ She indicated her partner.
Fielding in turn introduced them to DI Joe Burton, and with formalities over, Montgomery led them to where the murder victim was. ‘The man who has the allotment next to this one found him when he came down here about an hour ago. We’ve already taken him home as he was in a bit of a shock by the time we got here; knew the old boy well it seems, and they’ve had adjoining allotments for the past three years. The deceased’s name was Jacob Stephenson,’ he said, nodding over to where the SOC team were gathered and busily at work. ‘He lived locally, just down the road from here. Can you give up a bit of space, please?’ The latter remark was directed to the forensic team, who stopped what they were doing and immediately pulled back.
Murderland Page 4
