Murderland

by Pamela Murray

  ‘What’s going on?’ Fielding asked.

  ‘They’ve found Jim Martindale’s address,’ said Burton, excitement showing in his voice. ‘Okay, Summers, Wayman, I want both of you to come with me on this one, just in case he decides to do a runner when we get there. Summers, you’re a lot fitter and younger than me and Wayman.’

  The three detectives collected what they needed and left the office in full flight, creating something of a whirlwind in their wake. Fielding watched as they disappeared then continued tidying up her workstation. When she’d finished, she said goodnight to the two remaining DCs and the admin staff, then headed home to her two cats before getting ready for her evening out with Claire Rawlins.

  Jim Martindale’s address was in the Hulme area of Manchester. Burton and his team noticed that there was already a vehicle parked up on the driveway. He was home, or at least somebody was, as they didn’t know whether he lived alone, with a friend or partner, or if he lived with his parents even. Burton directed Summers to go around the back of the house and Wayman to stand by the side gate, which appeared to go to the rear garden. He approached the front door himself and tried the doorbell. Through the crinkled glass of the half-paned door, he saw a light go on in the hallway, then a figure walked towards the door.

  ‘Yes? Who is it?’ a male voice called out. Clearly he did not wish to open the door until he knew who was there.

  ‘It’s the police, sir,’ Burton announced, ‘and we are trying to locate a Mr Jim Martindale. Is that you?’

  There was the sound of a chain being removed. Then the door opened to reveal a middle-aged man standing there. Burton showed him his warrant card. ‘Jim? No, that’s not me… it’s my son. What’s happened? Is he all right?’

  ‘We’re just trying to speak to him with regard to a course he was on recently.’

  ‘A course? What kind of course?’ the man asked, seeming confused by the whole line of questioning.

  Burton told him that it was a computer one.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Mr Martindale senior stated, now more than slightly annoyed. ‘My son wouldn’t be on a computer course.’

  ‘How could you be so sure, sir?’ Burton had been patient with the man so far, but was now becoming irritated by him. ‘If we could just have a quick word with–’

  But he was cut off mid-sentence.

  ‘I’d like to see you try,’ the boy’s father declared sharply, finally fed up with the police officer and his questions. ‘You couldn’t do anything for him when it happened, so go ahead, try to get him to speak to you.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Burton was confused.

  ‘Try the Royal Infirmary,’ he said sharply. ‘He’s been in there in a coma since he was knocked down last year. Your people still haven’t found out who did it.’

  Burton was shocked – and speechless. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t stopped to check the name out before rushing out with his team with all guns blazing. He should at least have put the name of Jim Martindale through their systems. It would have shown up as being the victim of a hit-and-run, as this had seemed to be. He brought the photograph out of his pocket and showed it to Mr Martindale senior.

  Shaking his head, he said, ‘I’ve no idea who this person is, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Does that mean that you will now investigate my boy’s accident properly?’ The father looked him straight in the eyes, full of hope and desperate for an affirmation. He must have spent the last year waiting for somebody from the police force to come knocking on his door to tell him that the perpetrator had finally been found and charged. And here was Burton, rolling up without so much as doing a background check, and landing on his doorstep full of ignorance and bad preparation.

  Burton floundered, now not knowing what to tell the man. The delay did not go unnoticed.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Martindale senior said, ‘I won’t hold my breath,’ and slammed the door in his face.

  24

  It was quite a change for Fielding to put on a bit of make-up, spray some perfume on her wrists, pick out a smart evening outfit, a pair of heeled shoes way too high to wear for everyday work and spend an evening away from the cats and the TV.

  She pressed the bell and waited for Claire to come and let her in, holding the bottle of wine that she’d brought with her. She didn’t have much of an inkling of what sort of wine Claire preferred, but had chosen a bottle of sparkling rosé. It really went with anything and everything, and how could she go wrong with that? Claire hadn’t said if they were staying in or going out, but whatever it was going to be, a glass of the bubbly would set them up.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Claire greeted her warmly and opened the door wide for her to enter.

  As she walked into the hallway, Fielding glanced around her, taking note of her whereabouts and taking everything into account. A hazard of the job, she thought.

  Claire must have read her thoughts as she said, ‘You can have a night off once in a while, you know!’

  Fielding laughed. ‘Am I that obvious?’ she said, ‘A police officer twenty-four-seven.’

  ‘Just a bit.’ Claire took her coat and hung it up on the coat rack beside a long, oak-coloured console table with an ornate mirror positioned centrally above it.

  She said, ‘I’m surprised that you haven’t got your notebook out to jot everything down.’

  ‘No, that’s Burton’s thing, not mine.’ Fielding could see him in her mind, reaching for that book inside his jacket.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and sit down.’ Claire Rawlins led her into a lovely front room, halfway between modern and traditional, with a realistic-looking gas fire on the chimney breast stealing the focal point and directing the eyes towards it. The heat it was giving off was very welcome, and in stark contrast to the crisp evening air outside. Again, like the mirror above the console table in the hallway, there was an equally elegant and unusual one above the mantelpiece. Almost the full width of the chimney breast and about half the height, the oblong mirror was surrounded by what looked like a mosaic of small, irregular pieces of reflective glass. The effect of the light bouncing off them was intriguing.

  ‘Would you like me to open this now?’ Claire said, holding up the bottle of rosé Fielding had handed to her on the way in. Fielding nodded. It had been sitting in her fridge for a few weeks, so it was well and truly chilled.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable and I’ll just go and pour this for us.’ Claire held up the bottle and smiled, indicating for Fielding to sit down on one of the two large cream sofas while she headed off to the kitchen in search of glasses. Fielding did as she was told and sat facing the fire. It felt as if she was sinking into the comfort of the memory foam, it was so soft yet supportive. It was the luxury her old sofa lacked – too many years sitting on the same part of it had flattened it to the point where it was a shadow of its former self. Perhaps she should invest in a new one soon.

  ‘Here we go,’ Claire announced, coming in holding two almost full glasses of the pink fizz, and handing one over to Fielding. ‘Cheers,’ she said, and they both took a sip.

  They still had a lot to catch up with. They’d briefly gelled again on the trip up to the north east, but thirteen years of catching up cannot be covered in the space of a day. It was good to speak to someone from back in the old days.

  Claire Rawlins had come to her school in the last two years she’d attended. Her family had moved to Boldon from further up in Northumberland. Claire’s father had taken a job as a consultant dermatologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle city centre, and she had said then that she’d planned to follow in his footsteps and go into medicine.

  As Fielding had left the north east immediately after getting the results of her A-levels, she never knew whether that ambition had been fulfilled or not. That in turn made her consider the lives of Jennifer Grayson and Caroline Porter. What had they done after they’d left school? Had something they’d both been involved with led to their murders.

  ‘
Penny for them?’ Claire laughed, bringing Fielding out of her thoughts.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Claire,’ she told her friend. ‘It’s this case, it’s been on my mind so much that I just can’t seem to relax. You know, I even went out jogging the other day and had to quit halfway through as I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It didn’t help that I was in the park just next to where the first victim here died.’

  ‘I know just what you mean,’ Claire told her. ‘Sometimes I get a case come in that I feel I need to know more about, not just the dissecting end of it.’

  ‘Nice!’ Fielding laughed, conjuring up a grotesque image of Rawlins bent over a slab cutting up dead bodies all day long.

  ‘But you’ve found the killer now, haven’t you?’ Claire took a long sip of wine.

  Not really wanting to disclose too much about the case, even to someone that she knew, Fielding simply told her that they had made an arrest. She didn’t need to know right now that they were still trying to find somebody else linked to the case. Nobody did until they’d found Jim Martindale, questioned him and, if need be, arrested him.

  ‘Then relax, Sally, you can afford to take the night off from this. Tell me,’ she continued, changing the subject, ‘what about that dishy DI that you work with?’

  Fielding looked at her quizzically, ‘You mean Burton? Joe?’

  ‘Yes, Joe Burton… is he single?’

  ‘Are you after him then?’

  Claire smiled. ‘No, not me. I was thinking about you. You two just friends, or more than that?’

  ‘We’re friends, we’re colleagues… and that’s it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just thought that I saw a connection there.’ Claire put her glass down on the side table.

  ‘Well of course you would, Claire. We’ve been partners now for about seven years; you get to know somebody well in that time. And you come to depend upon them.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Claire laughed, hands up in the air in defence.

  Having got that off her chest, Claire changed the line of conversation, and with it the mood. ‘Music?’ she said, rising up from the sofa and moving over towards the CD system on the shelf just to the right of the fireplace. She looked through the collection of CDs beneath it and, finding one she liked the look of, popped it out of its case and into the drawer of the player. They talked about their school days to a background of seventies music, then about what they had been doing in the years that had followed.

  Claire had indeed gone straight into medicine, studied at Newcastle University, then gone to work at the coroner’s office in North Tyneside.

  Sally talked about her reasons for moving to Manchester.

  ‘No chance of a reconciliation then?’ Claire asked.

  Fielding shook her head, wondering if her old school friend had not got the message from her previous response to this line of questioning. ‘I think too much time has passed now for any of us to make the first move. Maybe it’s for the best.’

  They talked more about life back in the north east, about people they’d been to school with, where they might be now, based on what they were like then. Fielding even speculated who, in her humble opinion as a police officer, may even be in prison now. Claire thought that last observation amusing, and very probably correct. Fielding realised that they had been talking for quite some time now and, glancing discreetly at her watch, saw that it was just past half eight.

  It occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Was that why she was feeling so light-headed?

  ‘More wine?’ Claire already had both their glasses in her hands.

  25

  Back at the station, Burton stood in front of the cork board looking at the photograph of Jim Martindale.

  Where do we go from here? he wondered. The only thing was to get this photograph circulated as soon as possible. A real photograph was far better than a sketch artist’s image. And that meant going to the media again.

  It was now fast approaching six o’clock and half of his team would be signing off their shift for the night. Fielding had already left for her evening out at Claire Rawlins’s house, and he was delighted that she was getting time away from this case. But it looked as if he and Wayman would be making a few phone calls before they left for the night.

  DC Francis was just closing her computer down when her fiancé, Sean Dylan, appeared in the doorway and waved. He worked on the dispatch team and on the very rare occasions that they shared the same shift end time, he would come down from the third floor and they’d drive home together.

  ‘Hi, Sean,’ Burton called across to him when he saw him standing there. ‘At least some of us are getting home early tonight.’

  ‘Yes, and both at the same time too. Doesn’t often work out that way.’

  Burton laughed. ‘That’s so true.’ Then waved him in, ‘Come on in, you needn’t stand on ceremony in the doorway.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He moved across to Jane Francis’s desk and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said, putting her files away in the drawers and locking them up before hanging up the key in the small wall safe at the back of the room along with all the other desk keys.

  As Sean’s eyes wandered around the room, they landed on the cork board Burton was standing in front of. ‘Oh,’ he said, walking over to it. ‘Why is there a photograph of Rob Pratchett on there?’

  Burton spun around and saw Sean’s eyes firmly on the photograph of their John Doe.

  ‘What?’ he asked incredulously, hardly able to get his breath. ‘You know this person?’ Hearing this, the other officers and admin staff left in the room all stopped what they were doing in unison and looked towards him. Francis came up and stood beside him.

  Sean looked around, conscious that all eyes were now on him, and discovering that they were. ‘Yes,’ he said after a brief pause. ‘It’s Rob. He’s one of the dispatchers upstairs… or should I say, he was, he left last Friday. Going back up north, or something like that, he said.’ Turning to Francis, he said, ‘You know that do I went to on Friday evening? It was for him leaving.’

  Burton had heard DC Francis say on so many occasions how great Sean was with anything to do with computers and tech, so he asked whether Rob Pratchett was likewise proficient in the skill.

  ‘Is he ever!’ Sean said in sheer admiration. ‘The man’s an absolute genius when it comes to computers. Did you know he’s also a member of MENSA?’

  Burton had already heard enough. ‘Wayman,’ he shouted, ‘get upstairs quickly and find his home address.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sean asked, confused by Burton’s excitement at his revelation. ‘Is he in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘I think you’ve just cracked our case wide open.’ Burton could have kissed the man.

  ‘I don’t think I should have any more after this, Claire,’ said Fielding, her voice sounding just a little bit off as she said it. ‘It’s gone to my head. Maybe we should eat something now.’

  At that moment, the song on the CD changed to something that Fielding hadn’t heard in a very long time, right back to the time she was in secondary school. It was one of her favourites, as she recalled, back in the day, as it reminded her so much of her all-time favourite book. One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small the woman’s voice was singing, and the image of a white rabbit sprang immediately into her head. ‘Oooooh,’ she declared, ‘I haven’t heard this song for ages.’ Fielding heard her voice almost slur the sentence.

  ‘I know,’ Claire told her, her voice sounding as if it was coming from some way off.

  ‘Claire… I don’t feel right…’ she managed to get a few words out before she couldn’t speak any more.

  Then the song seemed to go out of tune. In fact, it was at that point that she herself seemed to go out of tune. The mirror above the mantelpiece again caught her attention as the mosaic pieces of reflective glass surrounding it seemed to break away and swirl around in front of her, light bouncing off ea
ch piece to create a kaleidoscope of patterns and shapes. She looked across at Claire, who was staring directly at her. Her mouth was moving and she seemed to be saying something to her but she couldn’t make out what it was. The music distorted even more And your mind is moving low – that’s exactly how it felt for her right now, her mind was moving low, slowing down, even Claire rising from her seat opposite was choreographed in slow motion and not at normal speed. What is happening? Why am I feeling like this?

  Then she heard another voice in the room. ‘Is she going under?’ A man’s voice, far off in the distance, as if down a long tunnel, distorted.

  Who is this, and who is going under? wondered Fielding.

  Claire said, ‘Yes she is,’ and moved away from the sofa to be replaced by a man. Or at least Fielding thought it to be a man. The face alternated between a man’s head and that of a large rabbit, wavering in and out of focus.

  Or is it my eyes wavering in and out of focus? Fielding couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be certain of anything right now.

  It was as if she was on some weird, drug-induced psychedelic trip. But every few seconds, when the morphing features solidified into that of a man, she stared at him, trying to recognise him. Then she realised, in those last few moments of consciousness, that she was looking at the face of their John Doe. She tried to speak but was unable to as her mouth wouldn’t respond to her instructions.

  ‘Time to go down the rabbit hole, Alice,’ he said, his voice echoing harshly in her head.

  She felt herself falling sideways onto the sofa from her upright position. Alice? Nobody has called me that since I was at school. She tried to explain, ‘I use my middle name, Sally, now…’ But darkness took over.

  26

  DC Wayman didn’t even wait for the lift but sprinted up the two flights of stairs to the contact centre.