Northern Roulette (DCI Cooper Book 4)

by B Baskerville

  “Oh. Yeah, he text before going to school this morning. Said if there’s anything we need for when we get back, just to let him know.”

  “That’s sweet,” said Cooper, taking a bite of her sandwich even though she didn’t want to. She never felt hungry when she was stressed. And with tomorrow’s funeral and her mother’s hints that Benji’s wasn’t doing well financially, she was very stressed indeed.

  “And if we need a lift from Newcastle airport, Josh’s dad will come and get us.”

  “He’s a good lad.”

  Tina gave a coy smile. “Yeah.”

  A seagull landed on the sand three or four metres in front of where they sat. He patted his big feet, picked up a discarded cigarette butt and took to the skies again.

  Tina slammed her book closed.

  “You okay?”

  She gestured to the gull as it flew away. Earlier in the year, Tina had rescued a baby herring gull that had fallen from the roof of their Tynemouth home. It had become Tina’s mission to raise the chick until he was ready for release. The noisy little bird was staying at Paula Keaton’s while the Coopers were in Lanzarote. Cooper thought her daughter must be missing Steven; he’d been a good distraction for Tina with everything she’d been through lately.

  “He can’t eat that!” she exclaimed. “I don’t care if people smoke. Half the people in my year smoke, and it’s their own damn business, but why do they...”

  “Have to litter?” Cooper asked. “Because they’re lazy or selfish? Because they think it makes them look cool? Because their mothers didn’t love them, and they lack empathy? Who knows.”

  Tina took another bite of her bacon butty but didn’t stop scowling until she’d swallowed.

  “I need to go to the registro civil to arrange Grandpa Ben’s death certificate. Will you be okay here until I get back?”

  “How long will you be?”

  Cooper scrunched her face up. “Your guess is as good as mine. Depends on how much mañana attitude they have. But if you need to get out of the sun, just head back to the bar or your grandma’s house. Do you have a key for the villa?”

  Tina waved her wrist; a small brass key dangled from a bracelet. She turned back to her studies and Cooper walked away. She’d almost reached the edge of the sand when she heard Tina’s irritated voice call after her.

  “Hey! You only had one bite of your sandwich.”

  Tennessee stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. His hair was a mess, but his shirt and trousers were immaculate. He’d look stylish if he could stop fidgeting for a moment. His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth as he turned his attention from one computer screen to the next. CID now had a whole host of people helping them sieve through the footage and photographs taken from the day of the triathlon. Through her role as statement reader, Boyd deduced the sand sculpture must have been erected after twelve midnight but before four a.m. The team conducting door-to-doors in the neighbouring streets now had a narrower timeframe for speaking with residents and viewing their home security cameras. So far, they didn’t have a single lead.

  “Wait. Rewind twenty seconds.” Tennessee approached one of the computer monitors. Though the victim was buried hours before the crowds had gathered for the charity events, they still needed to look for anyone giving the giant snake an unusual amount of attention. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to make this temporary grave. Surely they would have hung around to see the admiring glances and the chaos that ensued when the sculpture’s real purpose was revealed.

  “What do we have here?” A group of older teens approached the sand sculpture. A slender, barefoot female with long black hair ran her fingertips along some of the snake’s coils before picking up a seashell and placing it next to some others that had been used in decoration.

  The technician working the monitor leant back in his chair and folded his arms. “Aside from the boy who discovered the body, this young lady is the first person I’ve seen who actually touches the sculpture.”

  “Print off a still for me.”

  An ancient printer whirred and groaned until it finally vomited out the image.

  “Keaton. You have a minute?” Tennessee beckoned Keaton and asked her opinion.

  “The victim wasn’t heavy, was she? About ten stone soaking wet.”

  “Sixty-one kilos, according to Margot’s report.”

  “Close enough.” Keaton held the image at arm’s length. “This girl looks more like fifty kilos max. No way on God’s green Earth did she drag someone heavier than herself down to the beach, beat them badly and bury them alive. No way a lone teenage girl could do that.”

  Tennessee agreed, but it was the only lead they had so far. Besides, they didn’t know that the person responsible acted alone. “A lone teenager? No. But a gang of teenagers? Maybe.” He moved to the front of the incident room to address the group as one. “I want to find out who these kids are. Especially the girl with the long black hair.” Pinning the printout to the murder board, he added, “It’s probably nothing, but they may have seen something of interest. TIE. Trace, interview, eliminate.”

  Elliot Whyte hung up a phone and called out across the incident room. “Guv. Might have something here.”

  When no one acknowledged him, Keaton dug her elbow into Tennessee’s ribs. “He means you. You’re the guv.”

  “Oh, shit. Of course. Sorry Whyte, what have you got?”

  “Someone called about the e-fit that we released to the media: Mrs Avani Amin. Says the e-fit looks like her neighbour. She hasn’t seen her for a few days. Apparently, she knocked last night and this morning, but there’s been no answer.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Coronation Street,” said Whyte. “Not the one on the telly, before you say owt.”

  - Chapter 12 -

  Coronation Street was a terrace, just like its soap opera namesake. Keaton hummed a tune to herself as she turned a corner. She performed a parallel park as she pulled into a bay marked with red bricks in a herringbone pattern.

  Tennessee stepped out of the car and stretched his arms above his head. “Why are you humming the Eastenders’ theme tune?”

  “It’s the Coronation Street theme tune.”

  “It’s not,” said Tennessee.

  “You sure?”

  “Pat watches it religiously.”

  Keaton wrinkled her nose. “So, what’s the Coronation Street one?”

  “No idea. Come on, we have work to do. If you’re lucky, I’ll hum the Emmerdale theme for you on the way back.”

  Whether the dwellings here had always been flats, or if they had once been houses that were converted, Tennessee had no idea. He looked up and down the street. As almost all the properties had identical white doors with brass door handles and semicircular windows, he guessed the properties belonged to the local authority. They were close to the river, Smith’s Dock and the ferry landing. The wind carried the scent of damp trees and earthy mud, the tang of ferry fumes and the sound of water lapping at the banks.

  Tennessee adjusted his tie and knocked on the door at the end of the terrace. A woman in her early thirties with silky hair secured in a chic bun answered the door. She wore a yellow and green kurti over jeans and cradled a newborn in her arms. Tennessee smiled at both mother and newborn, then lowering his voice so he wouldn’t wake the peaceful baby, he introduced himself.

  “Mrs Amin? I’m DS Jack Daniel. This is DS Paula Keaton. You spoke to one of my colleagues earlier about a victim we have been trying to identify.”

  “Yes. There was a picture on the news. It looked a lot like my neighbour, Eve. Eve Lynch. She’s a lovely lady. I hope she’s okay.”

  “Do you know her well?”

  “Better than I know anyone else in the street. She dropped off a lamb casserole for my husband and I on Thursday. She said new parents had enough to worry about out without having to cook as well. She said the less time I was in the kitchen, the more time I could spend with this one.” She glanced down a
t the baby in her arms, her face glowing with pride. “I tried to return the casserole dish last night at about six, but there was no answer. I tried again later at, oh, I’d say maybe eight forty-five and again this morning.”

  “What time this morning?” Tennessee asked.

  “It must have been ten to nine because my husband had not long left for work.”

  “Does Eve live alone?”

  “Yes, for as long as we’ve lived here, which would be, goodness, two years now.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a photo of Eve?”

  Avani shook her head. “Sorry, no.”

  “Not to worry. Your neighbour didn’t mention going away? Visiting family?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “And you haven’t heard any arguments or raised voices?”

  “I hear plenty of raised voices,” said Avani, “just not from Eve’s house. Over there, though.” She nodded towards the house opposite. “Music playing till the early hours. Always some drama. Not Eve, though. She’s a quiet, little old lady. Well, not that old, I suppose. Sometimes I heard her singing, but I never minded that; she has such a lovely voice.”

  “And was Thursday night the last you saw or heard from Eve?”

  She nodded. Keaton approached Eve Lynch’s home and peered through the windows.

  “We are going to conduct a welfare check and enter Ms Lynch’s house,” Tennessee told her. “Thank you for calling us. We won’t take up any more of your time.”

  Keaton knocked on the front door and waited. “If the noise from across the street is persistent, call the council and quote the environmental protection act 1990. Tell them to serve an abatement notice.”

  Avani smiled and thanked Keaton before disappearing back inside.

  “No answer,” said Keaton, knocking again and pressing her ear to the door to listen for sounds from the interior. She pushed the letterbox and called through in a loud voice. “Ms Lynch? My name’s Paula Keaton. I’m a detective sergeant with Northumbria Police. Can you open the door, please? We just want to check you’re okay.”

  When there was still no answer, Keaton straightened up and looked at Tennessee. “Foot through the door or hand through the window?”

  “Your choice.”

  “Well, in that case—” She lifted up her heavy-duty boot and kicked the door. It opened on the first attempt.

  “Impressed?”

  “Always.”

  “You know, they really should make these things harder to kick down.”

  “You’re a walking big red key,” he said.

  In UK police slang, battering rams used in dawn raids were often called big red keys because they were big, red – and with enough force – opened any door.

  “Ms Lynch? Eve?” Tennessee stepped over a water bill and a copy of that morning’s paper. He looked down the hallway towards the stairs. “You take the downstairs; I’ll have a look upstairs.”

  Eve Lynch’s stairwell was adorned with a collection of art prints. All the images featured bands or singers. The style was abstract, almost as if the people were made up of triangles and squares. He thought the style was called cubism, but he wasn’t sure. Art wasn’t his thing. All the pictures were painted in warm tones of red and yellow. One painting of a slim woman in a long white dress with short black hair caught his eye. She was singing and waving to a crowd while two saxophonists played behind her.

  Tennessee checked the bathroom; there was no sign of a struggle. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, but the room is otherwise tidy and well presented. The second bedroom appeared to be set up as some sort of sewing room. A large sewing machine sat on a wooden desk, and piles of different coloured fabric were neatly folded. A pincushion shaped like a set of drums was placed on a book of sewing patterns. He checked the pile of fabric for anything resembling what was found in the victim’s hand before returning downstairs.

  “Anything?” he asked Keaton.

  She was standing in the kitchen. “Nothing. Have you seen any photos? Anything to tie the occupant to the murder, other than the neighbour’s testimony that she matches the description?”

  “Negative. No photos; plenty of art. The occupant’s clearly into music and crafts. But nothing to suggest a family: no spare bed in the second bedroom, only one dressing gown on the back of the bedroom door, only one toothbrush in the bathroom.”

  “What now?”

  Tennessee tapped his foot while he thought. “I say we bag the toothbrush, have the lab compare fingerprints and DNA. See if we can confirm that missing Eve Lynch and the lady from Longsands are one and the same.”

  - Chapter 13 -

  Tennessee paced in one of the upstairs corridors at Northumbria Police HQ on Tuesday morning. He hadn’t had breakfast; he’d barely had time to shower. Alfie hadn’t slept well, and he seemed to be living by the mantra: if I can’t sleep, no one can. Tennessee held a file in one hand and his phone in the other. He was talking to baby Alfie, or rather, he was trying to soothe Alfie because Hayley thought the infant was getting sick of her voice. As if a baby could ever get sick of its mother’s voice, especially one as soft and loving as Hayley’s. She was giving herself a hard time again, trying to be the perfect mum. She was loving and caring and doted on all of Alfie’s needs. She was a great mother and a wonderful wife, and he would tell her that every day until his dying breath.

  “Daddy loves you,” he said, knowing fine well his son didn’t understand a word he said. It was all about tone. “Be a good boy for your mammy. And please, for the love of Peppa Pig, go the...” – He swore under his breath – “...to sleep.”

  Tennessee hung up, pulled his shoulders back and checked the half-Windsor knot in his tie.

  Dad mode: Off. DS mode: on.

  He marched confidently into the incident room, placed the file on a desk and with his back to the room, let his eyes scan over the murder board.

  “Fingerprints are a match,” he said. “Victim is Eve Lynch, fifty-four, single, never married, no children, both parents are deceased.” He turned to face the room but found only one pair of eyes looked back at him. “Where the hell is everyone?”

  Keaton rested her elbows on a desk and supported her chin in her hands. “Boyd’s stuck in traffic; Martin slept in, but he’s doing the Starbucks run; Whyte’s chasing up a lead. He thinks he’s identified one of the teenagers from the beach and says he’ll be here as soon as he can. As for the others, I have no idea.”

  “Unbelievable,” growled Tennessee. “They wouldn’t dare be late for Cooper. I know I’m only acting SIO, but we can’t be sloppy and let standards slip. This is a murder investigation for Christ’s sake.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir. Anything I can do?”

  “Yes. Send a group message. Anyone not through those doors in the next ten minutes can foot the lunch bill.”

  Within seven minutes, seats were filled and eyes were firmly angled towards the murder board.

  “Right, thank you for gracing me with your presence. As I was saying, Eve Lynch, fifty-four, single, never married, no children. Eve has an eclectic employment history. She spent ten years working for South Tyneside Council before jacking it in to work front of house at a swanky restaurant. At thirty-five, she changed careers again, this time to be a jazz singer. She toured the local pub and club circuit for a while before getting a job singing on cruise ships. She’s been to the Caribbean, around the Baltic sea, all over the Med, Alaska, and right through Asia including a stop in North Korea.”

  “Wow,” said Oliver Martin. “She’s better travelled than the entire department put together. The most exotic place I’ve been was a lads’ weekend in Ibiza.”

  “That is exotic,” said Keaton. “I can’t begin to imagine the strange and terrible creatures you encountered there.” She put on her best David Attenborough voice. “Cocktail lounge cougars, a pride of leathery-skinned sun-worshippers, roaming packs of horny virgins, and the lesser spotted yogi-by-day-coke-head-by-night?”

 
Martin laughed. “Aye, that was just the first night.”

  Tennessee cleared his throat. “If you’re quite finished… Yes, Whyte?”

  “Famous jazz singer sounds interesting. Do you think she had a crazed fan or a stalker?”

  “I wouldn’t rule it out,” said Tennessee.

  Martin frowned. “Aren’t crazed fans and stalkers the domain of the mega-famous?”

  “Not necessarily,” Boyd said in little more than a whisper. “One in five women and one in ten men experience stalking at some point. And as victims don’t tend to report their fears to us until the hundredth incident, cases could actually be much higher.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And of the cases we actually get to trial and get convictions for, only nine to eleven per cent get a custodial sentence.” She picked up a glass of water and took a sip. Her hand was shaking.

  Tennessee wondered how Boyd knew so much about stalkers and their conviction rates. Unfortunately, he could guess the answer. He understood all too well that it wasn’t only the rich and famous who could be victims of stalking. He remembered how pained, hurt and embarrassed Cooper had been when she had to phone her colleagues to report what had happened to her. He thought of the women in his family and the ones he worked closely with. He did the maths in his head.

  One in five.

  “Like I said, I wouldn’t rule it out.” A line formed between Tennessee’s brows. “But as always, the most likely candidate is a lover or ex-lover.”

  Keaton interlaced her fingers behind her head and stretched her elbows backwards. “But Avani Amin, the neighbour, said she didn’t know of Eve being in a relationship.”

  “You’re right. We’re speculating,” Tennessee said. “Let’s stick to what we know. On Thursday night, a fifty-four-year-old former jazz singer dropped off a casserole at her neighbour’s home. She isn’t seen since, and there was nothing to indicate a struggle at her home. Between eleven p.m. on Friday and four a.m. on Saturday, she was taken to Longsands beach and physically assaulted. For some reason, she had a scrap of fabric in her fist.” He put his hands on his hips and closed his eyes. “Then she was buried under a pile of sand, the sand was shaped into a huge coiled snake, and she died a horrible death.”