Murder is a Tricky Business (DCI Cook Thriller Series Book 1)

by Phillip Strang

  Sutherland never considered that the principal acting parts he aspired to were due his inability to resolve his accent, West Country. Sure, he had made significant improvements and for Billy Blythe, a country accent was just right, but the classics required a polished, educated and eloquent tone. To have reached the heights desired needed more than he could give. It needed discipline and perseverance, and he possessed neither in great measure. He was a sloppy man, both in his hygiene and his movements. His car, an ageing Volvo was full of discarded crisp packets and sweet wrappers, the ashtray full of ash from unpleasant smelling cigarettes. He presented poorly, but he did not blame himself – he blamed others and the person he blamed mostly was Marjorie Frobisher. He knew it was her, Jess O’Neill had told him, and he didn’t have much time for her either. If he were to suffer, then others would as well. That was how he saw it.

  ***

  Sam Avers, the son of Marjorie Frobisher and Robert Avers, had become a major disappointment to his parents. Their income had given him the best of opportunities, the best of schooling, but he had a weakness for alcohol and an ever-increasing dependence on recreational drugs. His father, Robert was a heavy drinker, but he came from a generation where people drank heavy, got drunk and stopped. The son came from a generation where people drank until silliness and then started hitting the shots of tequila or vodka: his favourite, Slippery Nipple, a mix of Bacardi rum and Wild Turkey bourbon. He had grown up in the better parts of London, Chelsea mainly, and the clubs and the pubs were awash with binge drinkers. He had been flush with money; his father was successfully running an import/ export business; his mother, increasingly affluent and famous ‒ a celebrity.

  He had little time for either and by the age of seventeen, his relationship with them, irreparably severed. The family home was big enough for him to enter and leave, acknowledging them with no more than a monosyllabic greeting. The only time he granted them a conversation, short even then, was when he needed money or a topping up of his credit card. They gave in with little resistance. Their lives were full and busy. A delinquent child who had neither the innate charm nor the attractive looks of his parents left them with a feeling of apathy towards him. Marjorie Frobisher and Robert Avers could not love him as parents should, and the son realised this. The more alcohol in his system, the more he disliked them, the more vengeful he became.

  There had been a period in his early twenties, when a good and decent girl, Susie Hamilton, had attempted to love and correct him. They had moved in together, enjoyed a loving relationship, mainly sober for three years before he had fallen off the waggon and hit the booze again. The relationship had passed the honeymoon stage, although they had never officially married and domesticity was causing him some troubles. She moved out and the intervening years had been of casual relationships, mainly one night stands, and days filled with a drunken and drug-filled haze. He had attempted a career while sober, managed to find a job as a junior auctioneer at one of the most prestigious auction houses in the city. He wasn’t sure how it had come about, but he figured, maybe his mother was screwing one of the directors. Yes, he knew about her shenanigans and his father’s, but then that was what men did, but his mother? He could never forgive her, them, for their lifestyle, their affairs, their wealth when he had been forced to play second fiddle, even third in their affections.

  He hated them both with a passion ‒ his mother, the most. If they were only dead, he increasingly thought. Then I’d only need to share their money with that bitch sister of mine. They’d be plenty enough then, enough for me at least.

  Chapter 4

  Detective Superintendent Goddard continued to be reticent as to who pushing the search for Marjorie Frobisher. So far all the probing from Isaac had failed to give a clue.

  It was now close to four weeks, and Marjorie Frobisher had not been seen. Her credit cards, occasionally used in one location; the next time, at least one hundred miles away. Her mobile phone, switched on for long enough to make an SMS to her husband, ‘Home soon, love you’ and then turned off, barely gave time for a triangulation of its position.

  The investigation was failing, and even Richard Goddard was being asked leading questions by his Scotland Yard superiors as to what was going on when there were unsolved murders to be investigated. He just gave them a phone number to call; no more was heard after that.

  ‘Sir, this is going nowhere.’ Isaac Cook tried one final time to get an answer from his superior. A hastily scheduled meeting at Isaac’s insistence; they met in the detective superintendent’s office. It was an office that Isaac aspired to within the next two to three years. He regarded policing as a vocation; the detective superintendent’s office the next major goal to aim for. A goal now being hampered in the forlorn search for a missing person.

  He was determined to hammer out the situation with his boss. ‘I’m suggesting we pull out until the woman is found, alive or dead. This is just a waste of time.’

  Richard Goddard understood the frustration of the man sitting in front of him, but there was nothing he could do. The investigation had to continue. ‘Isaac, you’ve got to stay with it. It’s either the woman or the body. The pressure on me for a result is intense. I can’t take you and DI Ahmed off the case.’

  ‘But we’re wasting our time. The woman was not popular, at least with the people she worked with, but she’s not short of money. And then she messages her husband every few days. What’s the point of all this?’

  ‘Are you sure about the SMSs? Is she sending them and the credit cards? Is there a signature?’

  ‘The credit card only needs a pin number. We can’t be sure about that either, but why? People go missing all the time. Normally, there’s a cursory investigation, and then life goes on. Sometimes they turn up somewhere down the track, or they don’t. It doesn’t mean they’ve all been bumped off, weighted down and thrown to the fishes or fed to the pigs.’

  ‘Isaac, I understand your frustration, but it’s out of my hands. You’ve got to stay with the case.’

  Isaac admitted defeat and left. He did not like leaving on such a sour note. His boss was a good man, professional and competent, yet still answerable to others, forced to follow orders no matter how illogical.

  Frustrated with the conversation, he met up with Farhan and they went out for a meal at an Indian restaurant not far from the office. It had been a long day, and neither had achieved much. Isaac had managed to speak to the executive producer’s personal assistant, the prick teasing Sally Jenkins, but that had revealed nothing. He had even met up with Jess O’Neill, and she was still giving him hints that some further investigation, outside of office hours was acceptable. He was tempted, but the timing was wrong. If Marjorie Frobisher did turn up alive, the first thing he was going to do was to ask the series producer out, even conduct some serious probing of a personal and intimate nature, which looked a strong possibility from his last meeting with her.

  ‘Sally Jenkins, what did you expect?’ Jess O’Neill had said. ‘Did you pick up on the signals?’

  ‘Her and Richard Williams,’ Isaac proffered an answer.

  ‘Yes, of course. He must be nearly forty years older than her, but he’s a pants’ man. Sorry for my crudity, but he hits on everyone if they’re female and attractive.’

  ‘Has he hit on you?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Sure has, but I told him to shove it. I don’t need a sugar daddy, no matter how much money he’s got and what car he drives.’

  ‘Out of interest, what sort of car?’

  ‘Ferrari. Why?’

  ‘I recognised the signals in the office, surmised it was either a Ferrari or a Porsche.’

  ‘I don’t need a man with a fancy car. I’m more than capable of getting my own if I want one.’

  ‘I’ve got a blue one, flashing light with a siren as an optional extra.’ Isaac regretted the comment immediately.

  ‘Blue car, flashing light, sounds fine to me.’ Isaac no longer regretted his previous comment. He now felt prof
oundly embarrassed, ashamed that he had transgressed from professional to personal.

  Farhan continued to enjoy his meal while Isaac updated him. He omitted to refer to the intimate exchange with the series producer.

  Farhan was more interested in finding out who the influential person was and what Isaac had done to assist him with his investigation. Isaac had to admit, not much. Both were frustrated with where this was all heading and what more they could do. Isaac could only see probing Marjorie Frobisher’s fellow actors, the production staff, the script writers, but he couldn’t see anything new there. It was clear she was fuelled with her own importance, but he had spent time perusing the magazines in his local newsagent, and it was evident she was immensely popular with the public, the indiscriminating public as he saw it.

  The meal concluded. The curry was too hot for Isaac, too mild for Farhan. The plan for the following day, the same as the current day, and those previous – keep probing; maybe turn up a needle in a haystack.

  ***

  Richard Goddard felt seriously chastised, rightly so, by his junior at their previous meeting. He decided to do some investigating of his own.

  His instructions to become involved in Marjorie Frobisher’s disappearance had come from a senior member of the British Government, on the recommendation of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. An ambitious man, he had welcomed the opportunity to directly interface with such an important man.

  He needed to know what made the missing woman so damn important? The newspapers and the magazines continued to comment on her missing from the episode leading up to and including her brother’s death on the soap opera, and even her failure to return. They speculated as to where the actor was and what could be the reason. One magazine even asked readers to come up with a plot line when she finally appeared, even gave examples that had been used in the past on other soap operas: amnesia, a serious car accident, even met up with a bear while hiking in the American Rockies. Even Isaac had seen the humour with the bear story.

  A ludicrous plot line, the detective superintendent, had thought, but another soap opera had used it to explain the disappearance of its leading male star after he had overdosed on heroin and had been slammed into a detoxification centre.

  He had reappeared three weeks later, none the worse the wear, proudly wearing a bearskin coat. The admiring fans embraced his return; the ratings went through the roof. Two hours after wrapping up the first few episodes of his triumphant return, he was on another drug-induced journey; this time, the story was that he had gone mountaineering in the Himalayas. An avalanche and, this time, he did not return. The last time anyone had heard of the actor, he was working down at a soup kitchen dishing out food to the homeless. Unrecognisable, he slept in a doss-house or on the street. The production company that feted him, the magazines that sold extras copies of print, the adoring fans, all gone. They no longer cared for him, just another casualty of the relentless drive for ratings and money and the next celebrity.

  Chapter 5

  Angus MacTavish of the Clan MacTavish was a proud Scotsmen who spent most of his time across the border in England. This stance sometimes put him out of kilter with his clan brethren advocating for separation from the United Kingdom. Elected ten years earlier to the British Parliament in Westminster, he saw no reason to moderate his views on independence or any other subject. A safe seat in the Scottish Highlands ensured him the opportunity to further his political and personal aims.

  A man used to command, the position of Government Chief Whip suited him admirably. His primary function, to organise his party’s contribution to the business of Parliament. If that meant twisting arms to ensure the maximum number of party members’ votes at divisions in the parliament, so be it.

  He was also expected to know of all the party members’ peccadilloes and indiscretions. Sometimes to help them; sometimes to ensure they fell on their sword.

  Detective Superintendent Goddard arrived early for his meeting with MacTavish. He presented himself at the security gates that closed off Downing Street to the general public. He had the necessary accreditation, and his police pass coupled with his name on the typed list of scheduled visitors ensured he passed through in a couple of minutes. The office where they met, first floor, Number 9, was one house down from the Prime Minister.

  MacTavish wielded substantial unseen power and when he spoke, he spoke with the full authority of the Prime Ministerial Cabinet. The detective superintendent knew this; he also knew him to be a taciturn man who said little but implied a lot.

  The man barely raised himself from his chair when Richard Goddard entered other than to grab the policeman by the hand and shake it vigorously, a firm handshake ‒ an indication of power.

  ‘Detective Superintendent, my instructions were clear in this matter.’ A gruff manner, deep-voiced with a strong Scottish brogue, MacTavish intimidated many, scared most. Tall with a flaming mop of reddish hair, his forefathers had fought against the British at Culloden - killed more than their fair share. Even today at Highland gatherings over a few drams of whisky, Scotland’s finest gift to the world in Angus MacTavish’s view, those who had fought and died would be remembered.

  MacTavish was a pragmatist. Time had moved on. The British, his forefathers, had fought against were no longer the same people from Culloden’s time. Nearly three hundred years separated the past from the future, and it was the future that he saw as important. He professed no great allegiance to the British Monarchy, but he kept his views guarded, and besides, he was not averse to a seat in the House of Lords at the appropriate time.

  ‘Sir, I realise that I was meant to keep my people asking too many questions as to why they were looking for this woman.’

  ‘And you phone me up asking me for this information.’

  ‘My apologies, but this investigation is going nowhere. My people are charging up blind alleys, hitting dead-ends, and just wasting time. We know she was difficult, subject to bitchiness, and there seem to be some unusual arrangements around the marital bed, but they hardly seem sufficient reasons to believe she is dead?’

  ‘Detective Superintendent, you don’t understand. Dead is not the problem. It’s if she is alive that causes concern.’

  Taken aback by the statement, Richard Goddard had to ponder the situation. His people were looking for a dead person, and it had just been intimated that she may still be alive. Why was she so important? He had the ear of the Chief Whip, now was the time to pressure for more. ‘Why is she so important?’

  ‘I’ll give it to you straight. In confidence. Sure, I know about the so-called open marriage, her promiscuity when she was younger, and the banal programme on the television. What is of concern is who she has slept with? What dirt she has on them? What scandal she could cause if she spoke out of turn?’

  ‘Is she likely to do that?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a vengeful woman, even threatened to commit such an act.’

  The senior policeman saw it all too clearly. It was an election year; the government was likely to hold on, but only by the slimmest of margins. The last thing they wanted was a scandal, especially if the scandal was related to a senior member of the government aiming to hold on to his seat in a marginal electorate. ‘But would she?’ he asked.

  ‘Detective Superintendent, she’s soon to be out of this programme, being paid to dish the dirt on one or another chat show, and then there will be a biography of a life, well-led, or in her case, well-laid.’

  ‘Can’t you clamp a restraining hold on its publication, Official Secrets Act?’

  ‘Sure, we can if it’s published in this country, but if it’s scurrilous enough, the publishers’ lawyers will call our bluff, ask us for a reason for halting its release and once the gutter press gets involved. Well, you know the consequence.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  MacTavish relieved that he had at least given his reasons, phoned for some tea to be brought in. Five minutes later, a pleasant middle-aged woman entered and
placed the pot and two cups on the desk. Some small cakes on a plate to one side.

  ‘Mrs Gregory makes them for me. Wouldn’t know what I would do without her fussing over me.’

  ‘Please Sir, you’ll make me blush.’ With that, she left unobtrusively by the door she had entered.

  Cups of tea in hand, and cake consumed by both the men, the conversation continued. ‘Detective Superintendent, here’s the deal. We know she will talk, and there’s every sign that she is becoming irrational. We’ve had some experts look her over from a distance, and there are the early signs of premature senility. She may well say something inadvisable even when she intends not to. We can’t take the risk. If she’s dead, then that’s fine. Harsh to say, of course, but there it is. If she’s alive, we’ve got to stop any publications and her talking out of turn.’

  ‘But how can you do that?’

  ‘That’s the hard part. We’re a democratic country thankfully; free speech, so we can’t clamp her or the media. I wouldn’t agree to that anyway; it’s a dilemma. I’m pleased to say that’s not my responsibility.’