Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity

by steve higgs

  As they both left the room, the matron appeared, blocking their path. ‘Mr Smith you are not yet discharged,’ she pointed out in a manner that made it clear she expected him to return to his room and wait until he was.

  Albert had no time for that but recognised the service her staff had provided. ‘Please pass on my thanks to your colleagues. Most especially to whoever took care of my clothes. I’m afraid I must go now. People are waiting for me and there is a killer to catch.’

  His statement made DS Craig’s head whip around to look at him, but the detective kept quiet.

  ‘But you are not discharged,’ the matron complained when Albert neatly sidestepped her.

  DS Craig went with him, turning around to walk backwards so he could talk to the matron. ‘You’ll be sure to let me know when Mr Harris is awake, yes?’

  Unused to being disobeyed, the matron folded her arms and glared until they were out of sight.

  Going out of the double doors to the carpark, DS Craig said, ‘I looked you up. You had quite the career.’

  ‘What made you do that?’ asked Albert.

  DS Craig chuckled. ‘I got a call from a detective superintendent called Gary Smith. He warned me that you were in town and that we might cross paths. He said you have a knack for finding trouble.’ Albert frowned but didn’t say anything which prompted DS Craig to say more. ‘I should probably let you know that we found Joel Clement’s prints inside the Ford Transit van. And his blood and pieces of hair.’

  This was news, and it was welcome news at that. The detective lifted his right arm, plipping the button on a set of keys to open a silver Ford Mondeo. Pausing before he opened the passenger door to get in, Albert said, ‘You have released Kate Harris then?’

  DS Craig had his door open but stopped himself from getting in when he heard the surprising question. ‘Why ever would I do that?’

  Albert’s eyes flared. ‘Why? Because he was kidnapped by the two men with the van. One of them is dead; you found him in the street, I understand. The other is on the run if he has any sense. Those two are responsible for snatching Joel Clement and taking him to Wales. They killed him, or they are involved. I won’t claim to know what is going on, but you must be questioning how Kate Harris can possibly be involved.’

  DS Craig shook his head. ‘Not at all. I had been wondering how she managed to get him to Wales. Did she trick him into the trip? Did she get him into her car and then knock him out? The two accomplices provide the missing elements of her crime. You were a police officer for many years, Mr Smith, you must know that statistically, most crimes are driven by financial greed and those that aren’t mostly revolve around sex.’

  Albert did know that. He was a person who, when serving, reminded other officers of that fact on a regular basis. Despite that, he didn’t think it was the case this time. There was something else going on here. ‘How do you explain them coming back for Victor Harris then? If Kate Harris is the master criminal with two henchmen in her service, what was her motivation for the kidnap of her brother?’ Albert watched as the question finally made the detective sergeant pause: he hadn’t considered that.

  Feeling like he’d finally made a point that might stick, Albert slid inside the detective’s unmarked police car. ‘Take me to my dog, please.’

  Reunited

  DS Craig pulled his car into the small carpark behind the station just as the animal services van arrived. Albert had seen it coming down the road toward them from the opposite direction and hoped it would prove to have Rex inside.

  It did, the dog bouncing on all four paws as the handler tried to keep him calm.

  ‘Hey, human!’ barked Rex, wagging his tail excitedly.

  ‘What happened to his coat?’ asked Albert, closing the distance between them so he could fuss his dog. ‘He looks kind of … poofey,’ he searched for the right word.

  The handler, a heavyset Asian man in his forties wearing thick-rimmed black glasses seemed only too happy to hand Rex’s lead over. ‘There’s no doubt you’re his owner. The fur is like that because we used the hair dryer to get the water out of his coat. On some dogs it adds a lot of volume,’ he explained.

  He turned to close the rear doors of the van or, at least, that’s what Albert thought he was doing, but the man bent down and reached inside instead. When he straightened once more, he had Hans in his arms. ‘I believe this one is yours too.’

  The man was pushing Hans in his direction. The smaller dog had a big blue bandage around his front left paw. Albert didn’t know what had happened to him; he hadn’t seen the injury last night. He didn’t ask about it though, he said, ‘Hans is not my dog.’

  The animal services man looked surprised, and also confused as to what he should do now.

  DS Craig came to the rescue, holding out his arms for the dog. ‘It belongs to the victim of an attack last night. I’ll see he is delivered to the correct person.’

  Satisfied that he’d done his duty, the animal services man closed his van and left. No sooner did the car start to pull away, than DS Craig handed Albert the sausage dog. ‘I’m not a dog person, Mr Smith and you clearly are. Would you mind looking after him until we are done?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, he simply thrust Hans into Albert’s arms and walked toward a door in the back of the police station.

  Rex and Albert were back together, but now they had an unexpected extra.

  ‘This is fun,’ said Hans. ‘What are we doing now?’

  Frowning, Albert tottered after the detective who was now holding the door open and waiting to go inside. Led to an office that doubled as an interview room, Albert told Rex to lie down but kept Hans on his lap. He’d seen how the dogs were when together yesterday and when the dachshund tried to get to the floor, Albert carefully plopped him onto his feet well away from Rex. However, to Albert’s amazement, the smaller dog crossed the room to curl up touching the large German Shepherd. It made a small snort of laughter escape his mouth just as DS Craig came back into the room with two mugs of tea.

  ‘Now then, sir,’ DS Craig settled into the chair opposite Albert, ‘I would like a blow by blow account of last night, please, and don’t spare the detail.’

  Albert walked the detective through all that had happened but went back to the point where DS Craig entered his story: in the Clanger Café two days ago when he arrested Kate Harris. He told DS Craig about how he came to be involved, about going to Kate’s house, but left out the part about April and the suspicious missing money. When he finished, he asked, ‘You still think Kate Harris did it?’

  DS Craig was looking down at the notes he’d taken. The interview was recorded, of course, but he liked to keep pertinent points to hand. He heard Albert’s question but didn’t look up straight away because the appearance of the two men was troubling him. Once he was finished with Mr Smith, he was going to HMP Bedford prison to interview Kate Harris. He liked his post in Biggleswade; he got to be the boss here with only a semi-regular visit from the superintendent from Bedford. All that could change if he had too many bodies cluttering up the morgue. Joel Clement might not have been killed here but the crime was still his to investigate and now he had an unknown man in the morgue; a man who had been involved in a crime immediately before his death. That he carried no identification and the van they used was equally bereft of clues to his identify made him question what he might have uncovered.

  DS Craig had thought the case sewn up when he took Kate Harris into custody. Now he wasn’t so sure. Looking up finally, he said, ‘Yes, I do. I think she planned the murder meticulously, setting it up years in advance when she met Joel Clement and saw an opportunity. On Saturday night, she arrived home, whacked her boyfriend over the head and dragged him out to the van where her two accomplices were waiting. Either they killed him, or she did, but his body went the rest of the way to Wales in the van and was dumped at the side of the road. She waited two days and made a big show of trying to find Joel Clement herself before finally reporting him to the police as a missing p
erson. She thought she had got away clean, but I guess her brother found out or worked it out because she sent the two men to silence him.’

  Albert let his head drop forward so he was looking at the mismatched carpet tile. There was no point in presenting any further argument.

  DS Craig gathered his things together, closed his notebook and put his pen back into his jacket inner pocket. ‘Thank you for your statement regarding the incident last night. If you’ll excuse me, I need to travel to HMP Bedford now; Miss Harris has some more questions to answer. I suggest you drop your interest in this case, sir. Kate Harris is a cold-blooded killer and she has you wrapped around her little finger. While Joel Clement’s body was slowly going cold on Saturday night, she was most likely eating her dinner and enjoying a bottle of wine. I’ll have one of my constables escort you out, sir.’

  DS Craig left the room, walking away without another word. Albert couldn’t decide if he thought the man incompetent or if he might read the clues the same way if he were leading the investigation. The case against Kate was a good one.

  Alone in the room, Albert thought some more about what he still needed to do today. Far from dropping his interest, it was now as piqued as it could be. More certain than ever that DS Craig was trying to make the pieces fit and fooling himself that they did, Albert knew he might be the only person between Kate Harris and a long, yet undeserved, jail sentence.

  Pushing against weary knees to get back onto his feet, Albert knew what he was going to do next.

  Side-tracked

  Albert was on his way to breakfast. He wanted to continue to pursue the case: he felt like he had no choice now, but he also needed to get some food and take it easier today. His plan was to visit the Clanger Café and park himself there for a short while.

  However, fate intervened, and he only got as far as the front desk of the police station. A morose looking man in his sixties was waiting there for someone to deal with him but at the same time – proving men can easily multi-task – he was getting an ear bashing from his wife. It had to be the man’s wife, Albert surmised, because no one else would ever talk so harshly to a person.

  Her issue appeared to be that she didn’t believe there was any reason for her husband to be wasting her time or that of the police with some made up story about a man kidnapping him.

  ‘But, love, there was a man. He made me get in the boot of the car.’ In truth he’d woken in the boot of the car but didn’t want to admit that he’d fainted when he thought he was going to get thumped.

  ‘Oh, stop it, Eric!’ his wife snapped in reply. ‘Just admit you went to the pub and ate all the chips. This charade has gone on long enough.’

  ‘But I didn’t go to the pub, love,’ the man complained. He was facing the counter, rather than his wife, eyes forward and looking meek. He was short at maybe five and a half feet and his wife was taller by a couple of inches plus a good deal bigger in every direction. Albert had the immediate impression the woman had been verbally bullying the man for many decades. ‘I need to report this for insurance purposes if nothing else.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied, clearly not believing a word, ‘because you pranged the car and now won’t admit it.’ The argument continued unabated as the young constable leading Albert from the police station got to the door that led back into reception.

  At the front desk, the duty officer was on the phone and trying to wrap the call up so he could deal with the annoying couple. It was of no interest to Albert whose thoughts were only of breakfast and a nice pot of tea. He had Rex leading the way and Hans tucked under his left arm, but Rex stopped walking, suddenly spinning around to sniff the man at the desk.

  ‘He knows the human I chased last night!’ woofed Rex, instantly animated and excited. He sniffed along the man’s jacket, sucking in a deep noseful of the familiar scent.

  ‘Is it him?’ growled Hans.

  Rex sniffed deeply, but his presence was making the couple uncomfortable. ‘What is this?’ asked the woman.

  Rex barked, the loud and sudden noise making the woman jump backward in fright whereupon she let out a small scream. ‘Arrrgh! There’s a mad dog!’

  ‘Rex, sit,’ ordered Albert, his well-trained dog obeying. Albert was learning to observe his dog’s behaviour and there was definitely something about what he was seeing. His dog could smell something on the man that made him agitated. ‘Did I hear you say you were kidnapped last night?’

  The woman, calm again now that the dog was under control, rolled her eyes. ‘We’re perfectly fine, thank you. There’s no need to get involved. Eric is going to lie to the police to cover up going to the pub and driving home drunk because he ate my supper and crashed the car.’

  The duty officer on the front desk finally finished his phone call. ‘Now then, sir,’ he gave Eric his undivided attention. ‘What can I help you with this morning?’

  Caught for a second, his attention split between the officer, his wife, and an old man who actually seemed to believe what he had to say, Eric decided he needed to answer the officer first. ‘I stopped to help a man last night after I almost ran him over. He forced me into the boot of my car and took it.’

  ‘No, he didn’t!’ snapped his wife. ‘That’s enough now, Eric.’

  The duty officer watched the interplay with disinterest, but a crime had been reported and he was duty bound to log it.

  ‘I would have come in last night,’ Eric whined, ‘but my wife wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘That’s because it is stupid,’ she growled at the back of his head. A small tick next to Eric’s eye began to twitch.

  ‘What did he look like?’ asked Albert, splitting the man’s attention again.

  The duty officer looked up from his computer. ‘If you don’t mind, sir,’ he used his official cop voice which might have worked on most people but had no impact on Albert at all.

  Albert was curious to hear one piece of information. ‘Was he a tall, muscular man wearing combat fatigues?’

  Eric eyes flared wide. ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Short light brown hair, yes?’ Albert sought to confirm.

  ‘Yes!’ Eric had turned himself to face the older man.

  Albert swung his face and eyes to look at the duty officer. ‘You may wish to get DS Craig to speak with this gentleman, I believe he met with the man responsible for the attempted kidnapping of Victor Harris last night.’ Frowning as the next question presented itself, Albert looked at Eric again. ‘How did you escape?’

  Stood just behind Eric, and tall enough to look over his head, his wife sighed in an exasperated way. ‘He didn’t escape! He’s making the whole thing up.’

  The tic on Eric’s face twitched again, and to Albert, it was the warning sign of a volcano about to erupt. Before the man could reach that point, Albert prompted a reply. ‘You got away. Did he not close the boot correctly?’

  Eric shrugged. ‘I think he forgot about me. I was in the car for a while. He started driving and I think we left town because all the background noise went away. Then I could hear him talking on the phone but couldn’t make out what he was saying. There were two voices: his and someone very posh-sounding. When the phone call ended, he must have turned the car around. I thought that was what he did, but when the engine went off again, he got out, and after a minute or so, I found the release button to fold the back seat down. He was nowhere in sight and the keys were still in the ignition.’

  Eric looked relieved to have finally told the story to someone who believed him. The duty officer had made the call to get DS Craig, but as Albert heard footsteps coming their way from behind the reception desk, the woman grabbed Eric’s arm and tried to pull him away.

  ‘That’s it! I’m not listening to anymore of this rubbish! You are coming home right this minute, Eric Simpson.’ She had hold of the sleeve of his coat and was already starting to drag him toward the door as if he were a naughty child being taken home by an enraged mother.

  The volcano blew it’s top. Albert had to wonde
r how long the pressure inside had been building because the torrent of expletives erupting from the small man’s mouth was quite impressive. Giving Albert the impression it was the first time Eric had ever stood up to her, he listened as the downtrodden husband raged and spat and cursed at his wife for a full minute.

  DS Craig arrived behind the front desk, ready to ask a question but forced into silence by the one-sided verbal onslaught. Albert glanced his way in time to see his eyes as wide as the duty officer’s.

  With a final threat of divorce if she so much as ever questioned him again, Eric told her to, ‘Go and wait in the car.’

  It was then that Albert intervened. ‘No! Not the car.’ Swinging his attention to DS Craig’s curious face, Albert said, ‘I think the man who escaped last night has left his prints all over this gentleman’s car.’

  Detective Sergeant Craig scratched his head. It had been an odd couple of days. The last recorded murder in Biggleswade was twenty-seven years ago. He was more used to dealing with kids stealing things from the local supermarket. Occasionally he had a domestic violence case to deal with and once, he even had a fraud case that ended in a stabbing. He was feeling quite out of his depth, not that he would admit it to anyone, but he couldn’t ignore that the old man might be right and needed to show everyone that he was not only in charge, but on top of what was happening.

  ‘Impound the car,’ he instructed the officer standing two feet from him. ‘Get the crime scene team back here.’ Then to Eric, he said, ‘I think, sir, that I had better take a statement from you.’

  Rex watched the man who smelled of the human he chased be taken through a door, his bewildered-looking, and suddenly silent, wife trailing along in his wake. He got another sniff as he passed in front of Rex’s nose, just to double confirm what he already knew, but what now? Where was the human he chased?