Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel)

by Campbell, Sean

  He was dead.

  Ant turned to flee, his bloodied hand tucked up inside his jacket pocket. The paint can lay abandoned. With one good hand he had to make a choice between it and the toolbox. He gave the paint can a quick wipe with his shirt to remove any fingerprints, and fled.

  CHAPTER 52: DEVASTATION

  Forensics had finally sorted all the debris collected on site, and were slowly processing it all. Plastics, glass and organics had been ignored temporarily to focus on the metal shrapnel, as it would be the only source of clues as to what kind of trigger had been used, and whom by.

  Several fused chunks of electronics were found, but a great deal of heat had been applied to them during the explosion. Where the victim had been shielded by the metal bodywork of the car, the electronics inside the petrol tank had not been so fortunate. While that did make it easy to distinguish between the electronics used in the bomb, which were worst hit, and the electronics in the car itself such as the CD player, which were shielded by the other components, it did mean the evidence had been irreversibly damaged.

  At the most basic level the device appeared to be a circuit board for receiving radio signals, connected to an even smaller device that generated the killer spark. It was likely the receiver had been salvaged from a cheap mobile. A basic GSM 900 mobile would have been perfect for the job as it would only receive signals in one radio frequency band, and not be set off accidentally by a television or radio signal, which operates at lower frequencies than the mobile phone network.

  'Could the bomber have simply set it off by text?' Brown asked the tech showing him the remains.

  'Yes, sir, perfectly possible.'

  'But then he'd need line of sight in order to target the timing of the explosion.'

  'If he had a specific target in mind, then yes, sir.'

  'You think it wasn't deliberate? That the bomber just picked a random house and rigged their car to explode?'

  'Possibly but not necessarily sir. It could have been a signal, a warning shot, not intended to kill. Or it could have been an attempt to kill any one of those living with Mr Jake Randall.'

  'Hmm. I can't rule it out, but my gut says if you just wanted to send a signal then you would simply use a timer. It's much quicker and easier. Salvaging the circuits for a remote activation takes a fair amount of effort, even if it isn't all that complicated.'

  'You're the Inspector, sir.'

  Inspector Brown glowered at him. He hated the passive-aggressive types that he often dealt with in the lab.

  'If you've got something to say, say it. No? I thought not.' With that, he left the tech to sort through the rubble, and went back to his office to collect his thoughts.

  ***

  Nurse Jayne Milligan was desperate to get through.

  'Come on, come on. Pick up!' She urged the phone. It was no use; the number kept ringing off to voicemail after eight rings. She shook her head in dismay. At this rate she'd simply have to leave a voicemail. The mobile number wasn't getting through either, and come to think of it she hadn't seen Mr Gershwin for a while. It wasn't unusual for her to miss a patient's visitors though. Guy's worked on a rota basis, so she was often working at different times each week.

  She sighed, resigning herself to conveying bad news by voicemail. Dialling through one more time, she waited for the obnoxious voice mail message begging her to leave a message. The tone beeped, and Jayne began to speak. She knew she had to keep the message short and professional.

  'Mr Gershwin, Jayne Milligan here from Guy's Hospital. Your son's condition has deteriorated. Please come in, or call me back at your earliest convenience.'

  She wanted to say more. Yosef wasn't just the father of one of her patients; she had begun to get to know him over a number of cups of tea while he sat at Zachariah's bedside over the past four years. Hospital policy, however, had other ideas. It was against departmental rules to give out details on the phone, both because of data protection concerns and to prevent the parent becoming panicked. Thus Jayne was constrained to using catch-all terms like 'deteriorated' when in reality the situation was much more dire.

  Zachariah had suffered with recurrent infections since birth, a complication of being a Tay-Sachs child. For the most part these had been treated with simple antibiotics, albeit at a dose much greater than that usually wielded by general practitioners. The problem with long-term use was that the body built up a tolerance to the antibiotics, necessitating ever-greater concentrations be used.

  The most recent infection was mastoiditis. Jayne read from the chart, trying to work out when his next dose was due.

  'Looks like you had one dose after your headache this morning.' The boy couldn't hear her. The Tay-Sachs had already rendered him almost deaf, and it was because of this that they missed the first major warning sign of mastoiditis, hearing loss. Without the warning signs the infection had advanced unchecked. Complications had arisen before treatment had even begun, with an epidural abscess arising first.

  They needed consent to insert a catheter into the epidural space to drain the pus, but without contacting Yosef they would be unable to proceed unless the procedure became necessary to prevent loss of life. Jayne's hands were tied. She could only act once it was established the treatment was vital, and it would be unsafe to wait for consent, but at the moment Zachariah was stable. He wouldn't remain that way for long.

  ***

  Detective Chief Inspector Morton rubbed his hands with glee. The crime scene was spattered with blood. The last few scenes he had attended were pristine, almost clinical in their presentation, and the lack of forensics had made it nearly impossible to hunt down those responsible.

  'The question is, whose blood is it?' Morton's WPC, Debra Stevenson, was quick to jump in with the obvious as always.

  'I doubt one man got beaten this badly without the other getting nicked at all. Look.' Morton gestured at the spatters leading away from the body towards the car. The scene was peppered with droplets of blood.

  Mitch, the crime scene tech, was pretending not to listen to the detectives' conversation but couldn't prevent himself from chiming in.

  'Look at the spatter closely. We've got several clear concentrations of droplets on the scene. Near the body we've got low-velocity spatter.'

  'What's that?' WPC Stevenson chirped up again. Morton's face fell to his hands. Didn't they teach the basics anymore?

  'Blood drips from an injury. These show us where the bleeder went after being injured. It's mostly gravity moving the drops, but with a little bit of directionality as the person moved. See, there is a thicker concentration near the point of origin.'

  'What about this?' She pointed at a thinner line pointing away from the body towards one of the columns supporting the building above.

  'Medium-velocity spatter. Probably the victim's. The heart pumps fast-spewing blood out of the fresh wound. It's likely what killed him, although the coroner will say for sure. It wasn't done with a gun, otherwise the spray would be much finer. I'd hazard a guess at blunt force trauma. Again, don't quote me on that.'

  'Thanks, Mitch.' Morton had everything he needed. If the blood didn't match the victim, he'd be able to nail his killer.

  Forensics would finish up without any further input from Morton. By noon a manila folder full of scene photos would be on his desk, neatly printed on ten-by-eight-inch photographic paper. At the same time the body would make its way to the morgue for examination. Morton had a few hours before he would be needed at the conclusion of the autopsy.

  'C'mon, doll, let's go see if we can get ourselves some CCTV footage.' He gestured at the entrance, where a camera hung over the 'in' lane to the underground car park.

  ***

  Jayne had taken the decision to proceed without Yosef's consent. She had honestly tried to respect his wishes, but she had not been able to reach him after a full day of trying. Her voicemail messages went unanswered, and she had to assume responsibility for making the decisions regarding Zach's care. Pus had built
up between the dura, or outer membrane covering the spinal cord, and the skull. Pressure built rapidly, increasing intracranial pressure. His brain was being crushed inside his skull. The boy was being surprisingly stiff-upper-lipped about the whole thing. Jayne had barely heard a peep out of him in hours, and it worried her. The pain should have been immense, and the lack of fanfare made her wonder if he had begun to lose brain function.

  In some ways it was a blessing. Zach had suffered immensely during his four short years on the planet. It was immeasurably cruel that someone so young and innocent should suffer so. Now he was preparing once again for surgery. The pressure needed to be relieved, and the pus drawn off to prevent the pressure building once again. He was not an ideal candidate for surgery. His tolerance for anaesthesia was low, after being subjected to it innumerable times to help deal with the symptoms of his condition. He was not a healthy boy, but they had no choice but to operate. To fail to act would be a death sentence.

  ***

  'I need the feeds from the camera at the car park entrance,' Morton demanded.

  He was in a small office in the building above the car park, surrounded by computer equipment. The ventilation was sadly lacking. Beads of perspiration began to roll down Morton's brow as he felt the heat coming off the mainframes.

  'Sure, but it ain't gonna do ya much good.' The reply came from a fat, toad-like man splayed out in a leather office chair, crumbs from his mid-morning snack scattered over his clothing. He clearly didn't get many visitors to his realm.

  'Just give me the tapes.'

  'There ain't none.'

  'They're dummy cameras?' Morton shook his head in disbelief. Only in London would a multi-million-pound building cheap out on basic security.

  'Naw. LPR, mate.'

  'Damn.' LPR, or licence plate recognition, was a relatively new technology. Rather than storing huge amounts of data recording on analogue video feed, the cameras just focussed on the licence plates of the vehicles entering.

  'I can give you the logs.' The man wheezed slightly as he rose to print them off.

  'What do you record?'

  'A number of data points. The number plate of course, but also which space they park in, as each space has a sensor above them indicating occupancy. We needed that as some of the companies were moaning that the others were using their spaces. They're all pre-allocated, see, goes with the lease. Then we got time logged for both entry and exit.'

  'Why use it?'

  'Central London, innit? Loads of people looking for a free place to park, 'specially this close to the station.'

  'So you've got nothing useful for me.'

  'Didn't say that, did I? The system also logs when it fails to read a plate. It's got an entry for yesterday at 4.31 p.m. and an unauthorised exit at 5.58 p.m.'

  'A car?'

  'Naw, not unless they use high-gloss paint to reflect the lights and obscure the plate. My bet would be someone on foot. They ain't got a number plate, so the system logs it as an anomaly, see.'

  'Thanks, you've been useful.'

  ***

  Even modern medicine didn't work every time. Zachariah hadn't reacted well to the surgery, and the swelling had increased too quickly for anything to be done. A tear rolled down Jayne's cheek, and then another before it built to a steady stream. The entire team had spent four years fighting for that little boy. They had genuinely begun to believe he might defy the odds. No Tay-Sachs baby had ever survived much beyond their fourth birthday, and at Guy's the average was close to two. Zach had been almost halfway to his fifth birthday, a record for a Tay-Sachs child. He was deaf, almost blind, had a respirator to breath and a feeding tube to keep him nourished, but he was alive. Jayne knew it would be devastating for his father to know Zachariah had passed away while he wasn't there. He had been present virtually every day for the boy's entire life, and had even managed to take him home for brief spells in the first few years of treatment.

  The body would be taken to the morgue, and as per Yosef's wishes a rabbi would be summoned from the multi-faith chapel located in an outbuilding at Guy's.

  Jayne picked up the phone one last time. This time, she hoped she would get through.

  ***

  'What have you got for me?' Morton was in the forensics lab.

  'We've got two sets of blood on the floor at the Gershwin crime scene.'

  Morton almost did a little dance. Now all he had to do was find his suspect and DNA would do the rest. He settled for a little yip of glee that escaped him before he could contain his excitement.

  'Please tell me we've got fingerprints too.'

  'Sorry, got zip for you there.'

  'Damn.' Fingerprints would have been the icing on the cake. Few criminals jump from zero to cold -blooded killer, so there were good odds the perpetrator would be in the system.

  'You got anything else for me?'

  'Working on the processing still; I'll page you if anything comes up.'

  'Fine.' His tone was flat. He knew that 'I'll page you if anything comes up' was techspeak for 'get out of my lab'. He lifted himself out of the seat he'd assumed possession of for the session, and headed down to the morgue.

  ***

  'Afternoon, David.'

  'Hi, Doc. Please tell me you've got something for me.'

  'Yes and no. Cause of death was easy. Blunt force trauma to the rear of the skull. He literally had his head smashed in. That means a huge amount of force. I'd guess you are looking for a beefy guy in the six-foot plus range. Definitely not a woman in my opinion.'

  'What about these other injuries?' The body had suffered badly before the final blow was delivered.

  'He gave as good as he got. This injury here.' The doc pointed at the jawline, which was peppered with abrasions. 'This would have done some serious injury to the hand that did it.'

  'Bad enough he would have sought medical treatment?'

  'He'd be pretty dumb to, but it's worth checking with accident and emergency departments. We've got a few.'

  'I'll do it.' WPC Stevenson spoke up for the first time since entering the morgue. She hated seeing the recently deceased, and had loitered near the doorway as far from the men as she could have been without physically leaving. Before waiting for affirmation from her boss she dashed off to make the inquiries with A&E.

  'Got anything else?'

  'Nope, that's your lot. Audio-visual might have better news. That end of London is crawling with cameras, and our guy will have busted up his hand pretty hard. It might well be visible.'

  'Great; thanks, Doc.'

  CHAPTER 53: GETTING READY

  'No bloody way.' Eleanor's father, Oliver, had been particularly blunt. Usually slothful and willing to sit and listen, he had leapt to his feet when Edwin had announced his plans.

  'You didn't have a problem with Eleanor taking her to New York for work!' Edwin knew arguing was pointless, and he was going to do what he wanted anyway, but he needed to vent at the unfairness of their position.

  'That was different.' Eleanor's mother, Victoria, chipped in.

  'How?!'

  'Well, she's our daughter.'

  'Look. I'm taking the Vancouver job whether you like it or not, and Chelsea is coming with me.'

  'Please,' Victoria beseeched him, her eyes welling up at the thought of not seeing her. Chelsea clung to her grandmother's leg, trying to reassure her with a silent hug.

  'It's my choice.' Edwin put his foot down firmly.

  'Don't make me call our solicitor,' Oliver practically barked. His voice was beginning to become hoarse as emotions welled up inside his wrinkled facade. Calling a solicitor had become almost an in-joke in the family ever since Eleanor had qualified, but this time Oliver was deadly serious.

  'Chelsea, why don't you run and get yourself a slice of cake in the kitchen, dear?' Victoria silenced the men momentarily with a hand gesture. Chelsea didn't need to hear this.

  'Go for it. It'll cost you a fortune, and won't gain you a thing. Grandparents don't have rights.
' It wasn't strictly true, but Edwin didn't care. English law wasn't concerned with rights of family members so much as it was the best interests of the child.

  Oliver leapt to his feet, pain shooting down his aging legs as he straightened up. He was on the cusp of turning violent.

  'Please.' Victoria tried again, beginning to beg. Chelsea was her only granddaughter, and her son was unlikely to be providing her further progeny anytime soon as he was still in rehab.

  'I'm not trying to be deliberately hurtful here. I've got to go with the work, and the Canadians are offering me an amazing job opportunity.' Edwin tried to be conciliatory. He hadn't come here to be aggravating.

  'Will you let us visit?' she asked.

  Edwin nodded. He wouldn't deny Chelsea access to either set of grandparents. His own parents weren't too happy either, but had grudgingly agreed to support their only son. Oliver's clenched fist began to unfold as he realised that Chelsea would still be in his life.

  'How about I make sure to ring you when we come back to visit my parents, and you can see Chelsea then?' Edwin offered the only olive branch he was willing to concede.

  Victoria's face flooded with a smile, and even Oliver relaxed as they realised that Edwin was willing to be reasonable.

  'Deal.'

  With that it was settled; the Murphy family was going to Vancouver.

  ***

  The boys in AV were excited. Their work was often under-appreciated, but David Morton was well known for giving credit when due, and what they had would break the case.

  'You paged me. It better be good.' Inspector Morton had to duck to fit inside the booth used for audio-visual analysis. Monitors were crammed along every inch of the wall, and its operator was sitting cross-legged in his chair, waiting proudly to show off what he had found.

  'It is, sir. Marylebone comes under the City of Westminster council, so we retrieved all the CCTV for the day in question, and began to look for who was in the general area.'

  'You find someone?'