Murderland

by Pamela Murray

  ‘Now remember, Burton,’ the DCI told him before he was due to go into the press conference, ‘like I said before, don’t give them too much, just give them enough. I’m not going to be in there with you this time, so you’ll be going it alone.’

  ‘But we haven’t really got anything we can give them, boss. Again, there’s been no response with the drawing of John Doe – and I don’t think there’s going to be now. All we have is another murder, and a gruesome one at that. That’s probably all they’re here for, truth be told…’

  ‘Now, Joe…’ Ambleton scolded him.

  ‘Well,’ he continued, ignoring her, ‘we all know that they’re all in it for the money – first one to get their story or photo back to their editor, that’s all that matters to that lot in there.’

  ‘They can be of help sometimes, as long as we feed them the right information,’ the DCI persisted. ‘And in this case, I think we can tell them that we’ve found a link between all three victims. Perhaps that will get the people each of the victims have worked with, thinking. Maybe they remember somebody each have tangled with in the past. Somebody with a grudge perhaps? There must be a common denominator in this somewhere, especially as they’ve all worked in the same profession. A pupil who has attended the same schools they worked in maybe? It happens – families can travel around and some children end up in a handful of schools during their time in education.’

  Burton sighed again. ‘I know you are right,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s just that I hate the lot of those press scumbags.’

  DCI Ambleton patted him firmly on the back. ‘I know you hate them, but they don’t have to be the enemy you know, as long as you keep your hatred at the back of your mind. Just feed them a few titbits of information and let them print it in the hope that we can get something back from them in return. You’re not the only one with the weight of the world on your shoulders, you know.’ A friendly smile.

  Burton suddenly felt guilty for his now regular outburst at the press. He knew she and her husband were struggling with their son Charlie’s problems; in fact, he didn’t know how she could come to work every day in such a high-profile job and still function properly under the circumstances.

  ‘Okay, in you go.’ The DCI almost pushed him up to the door before leaving for the meeting she should have already been in five minutes ago.

  Of course, nothing went to DCI Ambleton’s plan. Burton’s hackles were raised almost immediately by an infuriating little ferret of a man from a Scottish newspaper who insisted that the Manchester Police Force was the worst possible police force in the country – did he include Scotland in that, Burton pondered? – and were clueless as to how to go about finding a suspect and making an arrest. Burton wanted to go up to him right now and knock the smirk off his face in front of all present. The journalist started them all off with questions and insults all coming at him at the same time until he thought that his head was going to burst open right there and then with the pressure of it.

  ‘Will you all shut up!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, even though he realised that he was being filmed by all the nation’s TV news channels and this would be all over the evening news before the end of the day. Ambleton would be having a fit right now if she knew. He could see the headlines in his mind’s eye: Manchester police officer explodes on camera. Scottish press reporter to blame. Scottish press reporter murdered by inept investigating officer.

  The silence was deafening after his outburst; you could have heard a pin drop, as the saying goes. Just give them enough. Just give them enough. Ambleton’s words went round and round in his head. He also thought about that cold six-pack of beer in his fridge, and how he was probably going to demolish it all when he got home tonight. ‘Let’s have some order then so we can carry on with this,’ he said firmly into the microphone and, much to his great surprise, they complied. Having momentarily found his inner calm, he continued.

  ‘Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I can confirm that we now have three victims of what appears to us to be same killer.’ He held his hands up in the air for silence as the voice level began to rise in the room. ‘If I may continue.’ Giving them a moment or two to settle down. ‘We know that all three people were in education before retiring, so we are looking for someone who must have come into contact with all three at some time in their careers – someone who has worked with them or someone who attended their schools as a pupil, or someone who has a reason to have grievance against all three. We are also releasing photographs of the three victims, which were taken during their working lives, in the hope that people will recognise them from those days. So, if anyone has any information regarding them, or can think of anything that would help us with our enquiries, can we ask them to contact the telephone number on the table in front of me.’ Burton referred to the 0800 number which had been printed out on a banner and attached to the table beneath the microphones. ‘We still wish to contact the person in the sketch artist’s drawing, so if anyone thinks that it might be them, or if anyone knows this person or thinks they may know this person, please let us know so that we can eliminate them from our enquiries.’

  ‘Has a criminal profiler been assigned to your department, DI Burton?’ a voice called out from the crowd.

  On the ball, this lot, Burton thought to himself – and not the Scotsman this time. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed, feeling it redundant to deny it as they evidently knew already anyway. ‘We are being assisted by a profiler from the University of Manchester who has been seconded to the unit for the duration of the enquiry.’

  ‘Can we have their name?’ another person called out.

  Knowing that Louise Simmons’s life would be made a misery if he let them have her name, he simply said, ‘I’m not prepared to give that out at this time.’ Despite their obvious protestations, Burton felt that he’d given them enough for the day and duly closed the conference. He’d half expected Ambleton to be waiting for him in his office when he got back to give him grief, despite the thought that he’d handled himself admirably after the first hiccup of that abominable Scottish man, but he hadn’t anticipated what happened next.

  13

  Apart from Ambleton, Fielding and Simmons were already in his room when he got there. ‘Look, boss,’ he began, anticipating the worst, but she cut him short.

  ‘I heard what happened, but I don’t blame you, Burton. No, it’s not about that. We’ve just had a call from Northumbria Police, up in the north east. They’d like one of us to go up there as they had a couple of murders around two months ago which bear a striking similarity to ours. They didn’t say in what way specifically, but they think it warrants investigation. Fielding here,’ Ambleton turned to Burton’s second-in-command, ‘has volunteered to go as it’s basically her neck of the woods and she knows her way around Newcastle and the surrounding area. She’s also asked if an ME can go along with her. If there’s such a similarity, she thinks it a good idea to take Claire Rawlins who is already working on the case. Thought that she could look at the forensic evidence they have, see how that compares. Plus, Claire knows the area well, as that’s where she’s from and works too.’

  ‘Well, if it’s okay with you, boss,’ Burton said, although sorry to lose his DS for a couple of days.

  ‘Fielding has spoken to Rawlins and she’s happy to join her, and she has permission to go from the coroner’s office, so the two of them are going up to Newcastle on the evening flight. I wish Northumbria Police had been more specific about details, or sent down any relevant information, but they seem to think that we should see what they have in person.’

  Ambleton stayed on after Fielding and Simmons had left, and had a few words of wisdom for her DI. ‘Look, Burton, give yourself a night off. Let the press work on what you’ve given them today. You and your team have been hard at it non-stop over the past few weeks. The homeless man case was one of the hardest I’ve ever seen in all my years in the force and every single one of you worked so hard to catch the killer. Y
ou’ve no idea how proud I am of you, all of you in fact, and the sooner we catch this vicious bastard, the sooner you can all get the time off you all deserve. It will be interesting to see what Newcastle has to say. Let Fielding do her job and hopefully, it could just be what we need to crack this case wide open.’

  ‘Will do, boss,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be happy to go home, but not before I go to see Simon in the hospital and find out exactly what happened yesterday. I’d asked Fielding to come along as well, and Francis, but if Fielding is now heading off up north, it will just be me and Francis going.’

  As Burton and Francis drove off to the hospital to see the recuperating Detective Constable Banks, all he could think about was that six-pack chilling in his fridge that would have to wait a while longer.

  Detective Constable Simon Banks was looking a lot better than when Jane Francis last saw him. He was sitting propped up in bed in a hospital gown in a private side room off the main ward and was joking with the nurse who was attending him.

  ‘Hey, Simon,’ Burton said as he and Francis entered the room, ‘great to see you keeping your spirits up.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ the nurse laughed, who, going by her name tag, was called Mary, ‘but I think he’ll be with us for a few more weeks yet.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ Burton agreed with her, adding on a lighter note, ‘I see he’s keeping you amused then?’

  ‘He’s quite the comedian this one,’ Nurse Mary told him.

  Really? thought Burton, who would never have pictured his Simon Banks as a stand-up comic, he was always such a serious young man at the station. This was a side of him he hadn’t seen before. But, come to think of it, the poor lad hadn’t been hospitalised in the line of duty before, so maybe he was just grateful to be alive. That in itself could change a person’s personality. He remembered one of his friends from back in London, who’d always been a bit of a joker and a lover of life until one day he was shot while on duty. It had been touch-and-go for him for a while and he’d come through it okay, but he’d never seemed the same person again after that. Everybody on the force likes to think that they are invincible to some degree, but Burton had assumed that this friend of his had seen his own mortality and it had left him with a different outlook on life. The whole experience had changed him, that was for certain.

  ‘Just a quick little injection and then he’s all yours,’ Mary said, preparing the biggest syringe Burton had ever seen in his life.

  ‘We’ll leave,’ Burton said, already starting to move towards the door.

  ‘No need,’ Mary told him. ‘I’ll be pulling the curtains around the bed so you two can stay put.’

  As she concealed their colleague behind the drapes, Burton cringed at the thought of the ‘little injection’, as Nurse Mary had put it, being inserted into Banks. If that was a small one then he’d hate to see a big one.

  When the curtains were drawn back, Simon Banks seemed completely unfazed by it all.

  He even had a smile on his face. Morphine, thought Burton, got to love it.

  After making sure that Simon was comfortable and wasn’t wanting for anything, his nurse bid her farewell and took her medicine trolley with her as she left the room to leave him alone with his visitors, but not before a final warning of, ‘You’d better be quick, though. That injection will knock him for six in a few minutes.’

  Seeing that time was now of the essence, Burton pulled a couple of seats closer to the bed for himself and his DC and got down to the business of asking both of them to give him a full account of what had happened.

  ‘We answered the call that came through asking for officers to go to a property in Altrincham, where a man had been injured fending off an intruder who had broken into the house next door. By the time we got there, the man, Mr Markham, had already been taken to hospital. This one, so I hear, and there were a couple of uniforms waiting there until we arrived,’ Banks told him.

  Francis noticed that he seemed to be a little out of breath despite his momentary high spirits, so she continued with the account. ‘We spoke to the wife. She was very shaken up but told us that she had been standing in the kitchen doing the dishes and saw what she thought to be a torchlight shining through the window in the house next door. There’s only a low fence between the houses at that point and her kitchen looks straight into next-door’s kitchen. The property is up for sale and has been empty for about three months. She then shouted for her husband, who’d been sitting watching the television in the front room. When he came through, he saw the light too. He slipped on his jacket and shoes and went over to have a look. Next thing she remembers is that she heard him calling her name, and when she went out, he was staggering back along the garden path with blood streaming down his face. Said he’d seen a man in there, but he had a balaclava on. When the man saw him looking in through the kitchen window, he came out and attacked him with something solid, doesn’t know what, but he just ran. The wife then rang 999.’

  Burton nodded. ‘So, Simon, you then went to take a look?’ He looked towards Banks, who had now laid his head back down on the pillow and looked like he was about to close his eyes at any second. That being the case he thought that he’d better ask his next question quickly. ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘Not much, sir,’ Banks sprung to life again and raised his head again on hearing his name. ‘Jane took a look around the front and I went around the back. The next thing I knew, something hard hit me on the head and I felt something stuck into my side. I called for Jane and that’s all I can remember. I think I must have passed out.’

  ‘And I rang 999 and kept pressing onto his side wound until the ambulance arrived,’ she said. ‘One of Mrs Markham’s daughters arrived just as we were leaving for the hospital. I think she was taking Mrs Markham in to see her husband.’

  ‘Okay, thanks you two. You both did a good job last night,’ Burton said. Rising from the chair, he put a hand on Banks’s shoulder. ‘I had planned to go and have a word with Mr Markham, but after what you’ve said about the burglar wearing a mask, I doubt if he can tell me any more than you have. Take it easy, Simon, and get plenty of rest. You’re okay and that’s all that matters right now.’

  ‘Thanks, boss.’ He tried hard to suppress a yawn but failed.

  Burton saw that as his cue to take his leave and give Jane Francis a lift home before he headed off home himself to relieve his refrigerator of one of the bottles of beer.

  14

  After leaving the station, Fielding went home to quickly pack for the journey back up to her native north east. As per usual, as soon as she entered her hallway, she was greeted by her two cats, Sooty and Sweep, who did their customary circling around and through her legs in figure of eight movements, purring loudly as they performed their nightly dance. She’d rescued the two siblings three years ago following their owner’s death on one of her cases. She had instantly fallen in love with them and decided to keep them rather than hand them in to the RSPCA. This is what should have happened when animals were found left in a house, but she just couldn’t do it. Both were Maine Coon crosses: Sooty had white fur with ‘sooty’ smudges all over her, whereas Sweep was all grey in colour. They had both been an important part of her way of life ever since their adoption.

  ‘Hello, you two!’ she said to them, taking turns to stroke them both. ‘Come on then, I’ll feed you.’ They followed her into the kitchen where she replenished both their food and water bowls. They seemed to instinctively sense that she was not staying for long as they stared questioningly at her while she prepared their morning food in the timer feeders. She likewise put one of the living room lights on a timer switch. Cats are sensitive creatures and they knew that something was up. She caught them staring at her in the way only cats can do.

  ‘Yes, I’m going out again,’ she told them, bending down and giving them an extra stroke apiece, ‘but I’ll be back tomorrow, don’t you worry!’ She felt sure that they understood every word that she said and were chastising her. ‘Oh, d
on’t look at me like that!’ She laughed.

  Before calling for a taxi, she dug her small suitcase out from underneath the bed and gathered together everything she needed for an overnight stay, primarily a fresh change of clothing and toiletries. She felt certain that the hotel would provide hair dryers and bathrobes, if she found that she needed to use them, so there was no need to overcrowd her case with unnecessary things like that. When the cab arrived, she bid farewell to her precious feline twosome, promising to see them soon, and left for the airport. She knew that Claire would be doing likewise; they had arranged to meet in the airport lounge at seven for the 7.30 flight up to Newcastle upon Tyne International Airport. In the cab, she took a moment to check the arrangements for their flight and hotel accommodation that a member of the administrative staff had made before she left work.

  The flight up to Newcastle was a relatively short one, and Fielding and Claire managed to reconnect to one another during that time.

  When they’d settled into their seats, one of the first things Claire had said to her was, ‘I see that you’re still not using your first name then!’

  Fielding laughed. ‘You know, I’ve used my middle name for so long now, it’s just second nature to me. Don’t get me wrong though, I love my given name, always have done. I think I decided to go with my middle one just to rebel against my mother.’ It wasn’t quite the truth, but she’d told herself that this was the reason for so long, she’d come to believe it.