Running Blind (Detective Inspector Helen Grace)

by M. J. Arlidge

  ‘What are we going to put on the form, love?’ the sergeant continued, looking up at Helen. ‘Address unknown? Bongo Bongo Land?’

  ‘Shall we put the former?’ Helen countered quickly. ‘And before you exercise your prodigious imagination on a name for him, let’s just put John Doe, shall we?’

  For the first time the sergeant paused, aware now that the reporting officer might not share his sense of humour. He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her chest for a moment, before he finally resumed eye contact.

  ‘Prodigious, eh? That’s a very long word. Can you spell it for me?’

  ‘I’d love to, but I’m keen to get this filed, so shall we –’

  ‘Then let me spell it for you,’ the officer continued. ‘F.U.C.K. Y.O.U.’

  Helen said nothing for a moment, shocked by his sudden aggression.

  ‘Is that clear enough for you?’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to cause a problem,’ Helen answered, as calmly as she could.

  ‘Good, because it doesn’t pay to talk back to senior officers. You’re a tourist here, Grace. Worse than that you’re a WPC …’

  He said the last word as if it was an insult.

  ‘So if I were you, I’d button those pretty lips of yours and lose the attitude. You’re a rookie and don’t forget it …’

  Helen had never been good at backing down, at letting others have the last word. Everything in her was urging her to tell the old dinosaur where to go, but … he was right. She was new here and it wouldn’t do to ruffle feathers.

  ‘I’ll try to remember that. Thank you for your assistance.’

  Turning, she headed for the doors before he had a chance to respond. She knew that he would continue humiliating and dissecting her with his mates, but she wasn’t going to play ball. There was somewhere she needed to be.

  8

  The corridor stretched out in front of her, long and bleak. Helen had never been to Southampton Central’s mortuary before – her involvement with dead bodies usually ended at the roadside. In fact, the only time she’d been in one of these places before was when she’d been asked to identify her parents’ bodies, following her sister’s arrest for their murder. Helen shuddered at the thought, pushing the memory firmly away. She was nervous enough as it was.

  She was about to meet the legendary Jim Grieves. Though only in his late thirties, Grieves had been Hampshire Police’s Senior Pathologist for several years and had an ego commensurate with his experience. He was bluff, short-tempered and suffered no fools. Helen had already got a taste of this when she’d rung ahead to tell him that she would be arriving shortly. Grieves had taken ages to answer the phone and had then made it abundantly clear that her intrusion was neither welcome nor useful.

  Summoning her courage, Helen approached the locked doors at the end of the corridor and rang the bell. Moments later, she was buzzed in.

  ‘It’s not often we get bikers down here,’ Grieves said without any trace of humour. ‘They not giving you enough to do?’

  The implication was that he had plenty to do and Helen chanced a glance at his roster of cadavers – four in the last forty-eight hours – before returning her gaze to the man himself. He was tall and wide, with thick black hair, piercing gun-metal eyes and a plethora of tattoos. An intimidating figure who didn’t mind using his physical presence to make his point.

  ‘I won’t detain you,’ Helen continued, aware that she sounded very green and overly formal. ‘I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the RTA that came in today.’

  Helen knew their young man was in one of the mortuary’s storage units – she just wasn’t sure which.

  ‘Why?’ was the blunt response.

  ‘Because I’m not convinced his death was an accident,’ Helen replied, the pitch of her voice slightly higher than she would have liked.

  Grieves finally looked up from his clipboard and his face said it all. It was not the done thing for traffic cops to play detective.

  ‘And I’d like your professional opinion on his injuries. Please.’

  A moment’s pause, then Grieves turned and beckoned her to follow him to the end of the storage wall.

  ‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ he said as they walked together. ‘It’s my other half’s birthday and if I’m late my bollocks will be on the menu.’

  Helen nodded, but said nothing, pleased that Grieves seemed to have warmed to her a little. They came to the end of the row and the pathologist yanked out the slider on which the young man’s body lay. Without introduction, he lifted the sheet, exposing the naked corpse below.

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  Helen took in the broken body and her eye was drawn to a line of bumps on his torso.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘Tribal scarification. Pretty common in East Africa. They are usually given to young men who’ve displayed great bravery. They are also supposed to protect you from death.’

  The irony of this was lost on neither.

  ‘Your man’s probably from Ethiopia, Somalia. Perhaps Rwanda.’

  Helen took this in – their first clue as to their mystery man’s identity.

  ‘Are his injuries consistent with the RTA?’ Helen continued.

  ‘Well he’s got a fractured skull, eleven cracked ribs, a shattered pelvis and various other minor breaks, which is pretty standard fare,’ Grieves told her. ‘But I wouldn’t expect to see these from a car impact.’

  He was pointing to a series of livid welts and blisters on the man’s back.

  ‘They’re burns of some kind. And these longer markings are the result of a beating. Hard to say what inflicted them, but the scarring is long and rippled, so maybe a bicycle chain …?’

  ‘He’s been tortured?’

  ‘Not for me to say,’ Grieves responded carefully.

  ‘And what’s that?’ Helen asked, indicating a swelling on the corpse’s right ankle. ‘More of the same?’

  ‘No, the skin has been torn here. There are two deep abrasions, evenly spaced and of a similar depth which might indicate that –’

  ‘Could it be a dog bite?’ Helen interrupted.

  ‘Yes, I think it probably is,’ Grieves said looking up at Helen, the ghost of a smile drifting across his face.

  ‘Is it fresh? From today perhaps?’

  ‘Looks that way, given the levels of inflammation.’

  Helen took this in, then drawing on her last vestiges of courage, said: ‘I don’t suppose there is any chance of a full post mortem is there?’

  Grieves’s right eyebrow rose slowly.

  ‘I know it’s not the done thing,’ Helen continued quickly, ‘but if I’m going to ask CID to take a look at this, I’ll need some firm evidence –’

  ‘It’s ok, WPC Grace, there’s no need to harangue me. This kid has obviously suffered. I think his injuries deserve a closer look.’

  Helen found herself smiling foolishly at the pathologist, pleased not to have had to use the big speech she’d prepared in advance.

  ‘Is that all? Or was there something else you wanted to discuss?’

  ‘Nothing, no, and thank you,’ Helen answered.

  She turned to leave, then paused.

  ‘What will happen to him? After you’ve done your work, I mean …’

  Grieves paused, seemingly surprised by the question. Helen suspected he didn’t get asked this very much.

  ‘Well, if we can establish his identity, then obviously his next of kin will be informed …’

  ‘And if we can’t find out who he is?’

  Grieves looked at her and for the first time Helen thought she saw the compassion that lurked beneath his gruff exterior.

  ‘Then he’ll be buried in an without a name.’

  9

  Helen was still thinking about the young man on the slab, when she returned to her flat. It had been a tiring and distressing shift and she was looking forward to getting out of her leathers and jumping in the shower. Shutting the fro
nt door behind her, she called out a brief greeting and was rewarded by a grunt from the front room.

  Helen shared a flat with two other young professionals. Tina was a midwife at South Hants Hospital and was hardly ever home, because of the silly hours she worked. Simon, an IT guy, was by contrast frequently at home and Helen was not surprised to see him crouched in front of the TV now. He had been in a funk since England had failed to qualify for the World Cup a few weeks back and spent most of his time indulging his other great passion – gaming. Sonic was his poison of choice today.

  In other set-ups, his obsession with his Sega and his blatant hogging of the TV would have caused problems, but as Tina was generally absent and Helen wasn’t a big TV watcher, they rubbed along ok.

  ‘How’s the hedgehog faring today?’ Helen asked brightly, feigning an interest.

  ‘Good, good,’ Simon replied absently, his attention riveted on the screen.

  Helen left him to it, grabbing a Diet Coke from the fridge and heading to her bedroom. Minutes later, she was stripped off and in their small, shared bathroom. The shower was weak, but generally warm and Helen enjoyed cleansing herself at the end of a long shift. She had always been fastidious about cleanliness – perhaps because her family home had been so dirty, her parents’ care of their children so lacking – and she scrubbed herself clean now. As she did so, her eyes alighted on the many marks and abrasions on her skin, a result of her tendency towards dark introspection, her need for some kind of release whenever her thoughts turned to her sister or her parents.

  As she looked at the scars and abrasions, her mind went back to the young man lying across town in the police mortuary. And the marks on his skin. His had been indications of bravery, hers merely of self-hatred and cowardice. But one thing united them.

  They were both utterly alone in the world.

  10

  ‘Aye, aye. Look who’s after some overtime …’

  Helen had barely stepped in the door when the comments began. She wasn’t on duty until the afternoon, but had headed into HQ bright and early anyway. The morning shift, still waiting to be dispatched, were intrigued by her presence.

  ‘Or perhaps it’s brownie points you’re after? Trying to impress Sergeant McBain?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a fella to keep you warm in the morning? Nice bird like you must be fighting them off …’

  The remarks were good humoured – Helen liked the team at Totton and they seemed to accept her – so Helen smiled as she joked:

  ‘You know what they say – the early bird catches the worm.’

  Satisfied with her pun, the team spared her further scrutiny, returning their attention to the morning newspapers. Princess Di was suing one of tabloids for publishing photos of her at the gym and her face was splashed across the front pages. Helen’s colleagues, who claimed to have no interest in gossip, were evidently hooked by the story, but Helen moved quickly past them to the rear of the room. Every inch of the back wall was plastered with maps, the whole of Hampshire laid out in front of you. They were a popular reference resource for those too lazy to open a map and Helen moved in close to them now.

  Her finger traced its way down the A36, moving away from Southampton, before finally coming to rest at the crash site, marked now by a small yellow label, which had a date, a time and a name on it: John Doe.

  Removing her finger, Helen looked at the area immediately surrounding the site of the accident. The A36 bordered the New Forest on one side, but it was the other side that interested Helen. This was the terrain the young man must have crossed as he approached the road. As she’d expected, the map was mostly green, the area heavily forested on that side of the road too. There was nothing of any significance marked on the map – no housing, factories or industrial estates this far out of Southampton. This was mostly fishing and fly-tipping territory, remote, scrubby and unloved.

  But as Helen zeroed in closer, one thing did leap out at her. It was so small on the map, one might have been forgiven for missing it, but there it was nevertheless. About a mile or so from the road, a small settlement was marked. And next to it, a name.

  Manor Farm.

  11

  The farm was at the end of a long dirt track, which branched off from the lonely B546. Helen had headed straight there and pulled up now in the yard opposite a rather sad-looking farmhouse. Killing the engine, she dismounted quickly. Helen knew she shouldn’t be here, but she’d come nevertheless, determined to get some answers.

  Her arrival had not gone unnoticed. Two large Alsatians, chained to a metal post, were barking furiously at her and beyond them Helen noticed a couple of farm workers. Both were clearly of African heritage and both looked alarmed by her sudden appearance. Helen pulled off her helmet, keen to put them at ease, but the sight of her long hair seemed to perplex them still further – they clearly had not expected this interloper to be a woman.

  Smiling, Helen pulled off her gloves and walked slowly over to them.

  ‘Good morning.’

  No response, just wary looks.

  ‘I’m WPC Grace,’ she continued, flashing her warrant card as briefly and unthreateningly as she could. ‘I’d like to have a quick word with the owner. Or the manager …’

  Still nothing. Helen cast an eye around the yard, taking in the angry dogs and beyond them the numerous, tumbledown outbuildings. The doors were closed today to shut out the cold weather, but the smell, the feathers and above all the incessant clucking revealed that this was a turkey farm. A large sign proclaimed that the birds were free range, though Helen rather doubted it. In the middle distance, she could see half a dozen African men, clearing out the mess from barns filled with the fat, clucking birds.

  ‘You’re not in any trouble,’ Helen continued, returning her attention to the two men in front of her. ‘But I need to ask you a couple of questions. There was an accident yesterday on a road nearby, a young man …’

  Helen was met by blank expressions, so skipping the preamble she pulled something from her pocket, offering it to them. It was a close-up photo of the young man’s face, taken at the police mortuary. Taken from the right side, it avoided most of the facial injuries and was a good image of him.

  ‘I’m trying to find out who this man is. Do you recognize him?’

  Helen stared intently at their faces and immediately she saw a reaction. A slight look from one of the men to the other, before they both looked back up at her.

  ‘Perhaps he worked here,’ Helen continued. ‘Perhaps you know him …?’

  Still nothing, but both men looked keen to be elsewhere now.

  ‘Look it’s really important that we find out who he is. We need to contact his family, his friends …’

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Helen turned quickly to see a large, unshaven man approaching. He was white and middle-aged and spoke with a strong local accent. Helen noted that the dogs were quiet now, calmed by their master’s approach. Helen presented her credentials, then the photo of the dead man.

  ‘This man was the victim of an RTA yesterday, we are trying to establish his identity …’

  The man took in the photo.

  ‘But perhaps you could start by telling me yours?’

  ‘Gary Raynor,’ the man replied, evidently suspicious of Helen.

  ‘This your place?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Been in the poultry business long?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘Do you recognize him?’

  ‘Can’t say I do.’

  ‘Look again, perhaps he worked for you …’

  ‘I know who works for me and he didn’t.’

  His tone was firm and unfriendly.

  ‘Fair enough. You won’t mind then if I ask some of these guys if they know him –’

  ‘Yes I do mind actually. They don’t speak English and they are paid to work, not stand around and chat.’

  ‘All here legally and above board, are they?’

  ‘Yes, they are. Not that it
’s any business of a traffic cop.’

  ‘And they live here? Whilst they’re working for you,’ Helen said, ignoring Raynor’s jibe.

  ‘Yes, they are housed and fed on site. Lap of luxury here. Would you like to see?’

  Raynor gestured towards the farmhouse, but his tone was evidently sarcastic.

  ‘Not just now, but I would like to double-check that no one recognizes him. It is my duty to establish this young man’s identity and I’m sure you know that impeding an officer is a criminal offence …’

  Raynor backed down, albeit with bad grace, following Helen at a discreet distance as she did a quick tour of the yard. The dozen or so itinerant workers on the farm were thin, cautious and taciturn, possessing only a handful of English words between them. Depressingly, none of them showed the slightest sign of recognition when shown the young man’s photo.

  Ten minutes later, Helen was walking back to her bike, frustrated and downcast. Gary Raynor knew more than he was letting on and the coincidence of the African workers on his farm was too great to swallow, but no one was saying anything and there was little Helen could do. She had no investigative powers here.

  She climbed back onto her bike and was about to fire up the engine, when she suddenly paused, something grabbing her attention. No one would speak to her publicly, but someone had managed to send her a message nevertheless. Just beside her bike were two simple words, carved into the dirt with a stick.

  12

  ‘I’m not getting any hits for that name. Are you sure you’re spelling it right?’

  ‘Yes. A-D-D-I-S-U. T-E-S-F-A-Y-E. They’re both fairly common names in East Africa.’

  ‘Well they’re not doing anything for me, I’m afraid.’

  Rosemary Evans shrugged regretfully and shifted her sizeable bulk on her seat. She ran Hampshire Police’s Records Office and was generally diligent and willing to help. But she was a busy woman – understaffed as usual – and would tell you straight if she couldn’t help you.