Her own mum couldn’t have.
‘He was put away about a year back and this is the first time I've been called back since. The neighbour who called this in says that she is sure that she saw him legging it earlier. I guess he didn't get rehabilitated.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Rawlins. Terry.’
‘What was the MO of the domestics?’
‘We’d get here, she’d refuse to press charges and give us a load of abuse. A recurring theme round here. They fight each other then turn on us when we arrive to help and if I’ve been here a few times its odds on other shifts have been called out here too. We complete the forms, send them to the DVU, and while they piss about making further assessments and compare notes with the council its business as usual out here. This one, he got put on remand about a year ago. We had to batter the door in that night. We could hear him shouting and her screaming and the blows raining in. When we got to them she was pretty messed up. He’s out five minutes and she lets him back in and gets that. How are you supposed to help people who won’t even help themselves?’
‘And you say I’m all heart. What did you make of Rawlins, the times you saw him?’
‘He always struck me as a bit pathetic. He looks like a little weasel, nothing but an addict who took out his frustrations on a woman with no self esteem who’d probably been abused as far back as she could remember. Maybe this is what happens when an unhinged bully festers away for a year instead of getting to lay into you on the spur of the moment.’
‘Somebody was sure pissed about something, whoever they are. Or just plain nuts. Did either of them have any history of drug dealing?’
‘Nope, and I never saw anything that would have made me think they were at it the times I was here before, but you could easily fit all that stuff into any drawer or cupboard in here. We were just sorting out domestics. I saw her record once, when we had to put together information for the DVU. She was once a street prostitute, earning to keep the pair of them fixed up but she hadn’t been collared for years. She obviously moved into dealing at some point. You think that maybe Rawlins didn’t do this, that its drug related – that someone could be sending a message with that killing and the syringes and everything?’
‘A drugs war? Just what we need right now with all the gang trouble on the streets.’
‘Maybe it’s all related,’ said Deacon. ‘But whatever it is, it won’t be your problem. This is a million miles from light duties, North.’
Deacon was right. He had to get moving. Get ahead. He’d been caged up too long and was in no hurry to go back to it.
‘What about the neighbour?’
‘A bit of a busybody. An old dear who lives on her own and has too much time on her hands. I’ve been sent round there more often than I have here. She’s always calling in with complaints about this and that, you know what it’s like round here, and she generally made the 999 calls when it was going off in here. She probably saved the woman’s life last year. She says that she saw Rawlins leaving the flat, that he seemed to be in a bit of a state, barged her out of the way hurrying down the stairs, so she decided to check in here.’
‘Best I take a look at her while it’s all still fresh in her melon then, eh?’
Deacon shook her head, exasperated.
He stepped back into the rain. The four storey wall opposite was lit up, curtain twitching being too subtle for round here. If they had them they were flung wide. Faces peered towards him. He was back on the stage and had no intention of being an understudy. It felt good, even though he knew that the lights and faces would quickly become part of the night if he was seen to be moving in their direction.
THREE
‘It must have been quite a shock. Are you sure that you are alright?’ The old dear sure seemed alright. He couldn’t detect any signs of shock. She was one tough old bird. ‘Is there someone you’d like to be with you? Someone we can call?’
She returned from the kitchen with a laden tea-tray.
‘You want to be a bit more careful, Inspector. You’ll be getting the police force a good name,’ she chuckled and the tray rattled as she lowered it onto the coffee table between them. ‘At the risk of sounding like an old cliché, I was in the war, you know,’ she smiled. ‘I was a nurse in London during the blitz, Inspector. I’d probably seen as much as you ever have by my seventeenth birthday. I then worked for the best part of fifty years in hospitals up here.’ She smiled at his furrowing brow as the grey matter behind it did the mental arithmetic.
‘Eighty-four, Inspector.’
Now North was in shock.
‘I know, I don’t look a day over seventy-five,’ she laughed, ‘you smooth operator, you.’ She winked at him and started pouring. She was enjoying the company.
‘I do apologise Inspector,’ the old lady pulled a teaspoon from one cup and waved it in the direction of his feet before using it to stir the other, ‘but Tommy and Tuppence are the only ones allowed inside with their outdoor shoes on,’ she giggled. North glanced at the pair of Rottweiler’s at her side. They glared back and growled.
He looked down at the big toe protruding from his right sock and the tattered nail that had cut its way through. North shifted in the armchair. He hoped she couldn’t smell them too. He had no idea how many days he’d had them on.
She handed him his tea. The cup and saucer looked like part of a child’s tea set in his hand. ‘It is okay, Inspector, my Charlie would have been just as bad left to his own devices,’ she said, staring at his wedding ring. She clearly had an eye for gossip and a tongue for rooting it out.
North got back to business.
‘The constable says that you saw someone running away, into the stairwell? And when you got to Miss Lumsden’s the door was open?’
She nodded, ‘It was him.’
‘Him?’
She nodded again. ‘That brute of a so called man,’ she lifted the local paper from under the table. ‘They aught to make these judges live around here for a spell so they can see what life is really like for the people they are dealing with every day. Maybe they wouldn’t be so free and easy with people’s lives. These judges and politicians come from rich parents, go to posh schools and live in big houses miles from anywhere. They’re as guilty as the scum they set loose to do these things. It isn’t right, Inspector.’
North scanned the story next to a photo of Deacon’s weasel. The article was scathing. Despite previous convictions for more of the same spanning twenty years Terry Rawlins had been taken from prison to court that morning, having spent a year on remand, and had been spared further jail time by Judge Laurence Beech. He had handed out a two year supervision order and put Rawlins on an Aggression Replacement Programme as he had had plenty of time to think and reflect during his time already spent inside and he had promised to be a good boy from now on. The judge had taken him at his word despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The article was as punchy as its subject matter and elaborated on Deacon’s account. He had gone down for an hour long attack that could have resulted in his victim’s death had the police not intervened when they had. He had a history of alcohol related violence against his partners going back to High School. When police arrived he was foaming at the mouth, punching Lumsden’s face and when they tried to restrain him he bit into her and flesh came away in his mouth and part of her scalp came away in his hand. The old dear was right; it just wasn’t right.
‘Are you sure it was him?’
‘As sure as eggs is eggs,’ she nodded.
‘Was there anything else? Anything noticeable about him?’
‘He looked the same,’ she shook her head. ‘A bit cleaner but they’d have to keep you ship shape in jail or you’d be having outbreaks of this disease and that disease every five minutes. They’d have been looking after him better than he does himself.’
North felt conscious of his appearance again.
‘When he bumped into you, did you notice anything?’ N
orth didn’t want to put the idea of him being drunk in her head but he was running out of prompts. ‘And did he stumble into you, or –’
‘Oh, he pushed me, Inspector. He went straight through me like a dose of salts.’
‘And that was just after five?’
She nodded. It was now just past six. North had to get a move on.
‘You said you didn’t hear anything. Where were you before five?’
‘Ooh, am I a suspect Detective? Can I call you Detective? It’s just like Murder She Wrote,’ she turned to her dogs, ‘We like Murder She Wrote, don’t we boys.’ The dogs barked.
Bloody Hell, he was interviewing Miss Marple.
‘Do you have a motive?’ he humoured her.
‘She attacked me that night the brute was arrested, Detective. I had to have stitches. She started in on them and then did for me while the police were wrestling with that brute. There’s a motive, right there.’
He returned her smile.
‘This morning I took the boys for walkies at seven and we came back at eight,’ she went on, ‘then we went out again at three and came back at four. I like to be indoors before it gets too dark, Detective. We had just watched Countdown and I was putting rubbish in the shoot when he barged into me. He must have come up during one of our walks because we usually see anyone that goes by the window and I didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary all day. It’s been very quiet since he’s been gone. Occasionally she plays music too loud when she’s drunk but only rarely. She still gives out the vilest abuse when you complain.’
North hoped he had her zest and stamina if he made it to her age.
‘What about yesterday? Last night? Did you hear or see anything then?’
She shook her head and looked at him with a puzzled look, trying to work out his train of thought like she did watching ‘Murder She Wrote’.
‘Just the usual loutish behaviour outside from kids swearing like troopers,’ she pulled back the curtain revealing a security grille inside the window. ‘I had to fortify my own home after the second burglary. They broke in when I was at my Charlie’s funeral, Detective. His funeral! They knew I was out, see. That’s all they saw, an opportunity, not the tragedy. Not the empathy for a fellow human being, just an opportunity to feed their habits. They even took my Gemma.’
‘Gemma?’ North feared the worst.
‘My dog. A boxer. I used to let her out for a run, she’d play downstairs with the little ‘uns until I’d whistle and then she’d come running right back. Good as gold she was. Then one day she didn’t come back. I hope she found a good home. It does worry me. I shouldn’t have left her on her own. She was a big softy and would have gone to anyone. That’s why I got the boys.’
The boys growled on cue. North thought that anyone would have to be real desperate to tackle the pair of them.
‘Why do you stay?’
‘All my memories are of here, with my Charlie and raising our Jeffrey. All my friends were here. They’re all dead or moved away now and our boy is in Australia. He has wanted me to move there since Charlie died, but I only have this council house and a state pension. I don’t want to be a burden on him. And I couldn’t be flying all that way, Inspector, not at my age, and what about that deep vein thrombosis?’ she shook her head. ‘After school our Jeffrey went travelling and never came back. He’s a good boy, he calls twice a week, every week and comes back at least once a year. He keeps on at me to join them out there but I don’t think they can have much spare cash with two kids and her having to stay at home to look after the youngest. Me and Charlie struggled with just the one.’
Times have changed though, thought North. Her son was probably doing fine, maybe even better than fine if he could afford to fly back and forward regularly, but the old dear was proud. Too proud.
‘Who can blame him for wanting to get as far away from here as is humanly possible?’ she asked.
Not me.
‘Exactly,’ she read his thoughts.
‘You wouldn’t happen to know which pub was his local?’ asked North. ‘Rawlins’?’
‘All the likes of him ended up down the Pond House when the Black Horse shut down.’
He said his ‘thank-yous’, wrote his name and number on the newspaper and the dogs escorted him out.
‘They like you, Detective. I can tell,’ she smiled, sweetly, negotiating the locks. He couldn’t work out if she was genuine or yanking his chain. He wouldn’t put it past her. She opened the door. ‘You best start taking more care of yourself Inspector. In order to help others, first we must take care of ourselves.’
Their eyes met and he knew she wasn’t messing.
‘You know, what you’ve seen would be valuable to the papers, not just the locals, but the nationals too,’ said North. They may even run her as a human interest story. It wouldn’t be a fortune but it would be a lot to her. She would be able to afford the dignity of paying for her own flight and keeping the grand kids in occasional treats for the rest of her days. He gave her a name and number, nodded and left.
Deacon was outside.
‘You’ve got company,’ she indicated Lumsden’s place.
‘Where’s the Pond House?’
‘Bottom of the High Street. It’s a bit of an old mans pub, though, you’d be better off down the quayside.’
North went back into Lumsden’s.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come in here, this is a crime scene and the constable shouldn’t have let you through,’ said a muffled voice.
A short, slender figure, white suited from head to toe, masked-up and holding a latex palm out towards him, advanced down the staircase like a big white jelly baby. She shouted for the PCW. North offered his badge and she checked it twice, with a long look at him in between. She took her mask off. Coppers looked so young these days. She opened her mouth to speak then thought better of it, simply looking at her sanitised outfit then at him, as if to say, ‘are you sure?’
‘You’re not DCI Mason, sir. I was expecting DCI Mason.’
He was already being replaced. He had to move.
‘DI North,’ he introduced himself.
‘DC R-’ she paused. ‘James, sir.’
He looked at her offered hand and shook it. When he looked up she looked away a moment too late. He'd seen the look in her eyes. What had it been, contempt or disgust? He figured it was probably a bit of both.
‘Pleased to meet you DC R James.’
‘Just James, sir.’
‘How do you come to be here, Just James? I've been rattling around the station like a spare pr-’, he caught himself, ‘like a lost lemon, for weeks on end, annoying everyone in it. I've never seen you.’
‘It’s my first day.’
‘At the station? Or as a DC?’
‘Both. I transferred after completing my two years as a trainee DC.’
‘HPD?’
She nodded. The High Potential Development Scheme had recruited the future brass and fast-tracked them through the ranks. ‘I guess I stick out like a spare prick at a wedding too?’
North smiled, partly out of politeness, partly at the humour of it. The crude remark sounded funny in the poshest accent he’d heard since the Queens Christmas broadcast. She was brand new and wanted to fit in.
‘Good to meet you, Just James. I’d like you to climb out of that suit and accompany me. I have a suspect who may still be in the vicinity.’
Her face lifted.
‘Who?’
‘The deceased’s partner.’
It fell back.
‘I was told to report to DCI Mason, sir. He is on his way.’
‘I am the senior officer on the scene and I need you to accompany me, Detective Constable James. Now.’
‘You’re the guy who got stabbed.’
Good news may well travel fast, thought North, but bad news travels much, much faster.
‘Sir,’ she added. ‘You’ve been rattling, as you call it, round the station because you’ve been o
n light duties,’ her voice reflected the dawning realisation within her. ‘They must have despatched you, realised the gravity of the situation and then put DCI Mason on it.’
She was quick. Intelligent. Unfazed by confrontation with a superior, even if she considered the superiority to be strictly confined to name of rank. She clearly thought him unfit for purpose. He was starting to like her. She was inclined to think that they were taking the piss out of the new girl again. It happened as regular as clockwork at each new station: being new, being a woman, being part of the fast-track programme and her accent didn’t help her any. But there had clearly been a mistake that was being rectified.
She looked him square in the eye. ‘This is a murder investigation with no immediate suspects. PCW Deacon briefed me on the victim’s history and on today’s events, and Terry Rawlins could not have done this. I’m waiting for DCI Mason as already ordered, sir.’
‘So you noticed she’d been dead longer than Rawlins has been out.’
She stared at him, clearly surprised at what he’d just said. North had seen enough bodies to tell that Denise Lumsden had been dead longer than a few hours. Rigidity was too complete. It had been difficult with the extensive wounding and all the blood that was on and around her, but he had managed to see slight traces of the skin darkening where it met the floor, a sign of the internal blood pooling beneath the body, gravity having taken over where the heart had left off. He was impressed that someone as wet behind the ears as James had still been alert and professional enough to notice under such extreme circumstances.
‘So why are you chasing after Rawlins if you know he’s innocent?’ she said. ‘Sir.’
‘There’s nothing innocent about shitehawks like Terry Rawlins and right now he’s all we’ve got. You have to keep the case moving.’ And he had to get moving. ‘Forensics can take care of this. I’m going after him and you’re coming with me, Just James. I am instructing you to accompany me.’
Force Of Habit v5 Page 2
