The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird

by L M Krier

  ‘That’s why I’m phoning you first, boss,’ Ted told him dryly. ‘At the moment we’re a bit stuck as we have no clue as to the cause of death or identity of the victim. Jezza’s made some sort of connection, but I favour taking Abigail to the nick as soon as we can, if we can get her to understand what we’re doing and why. Jezza’s just seeing if she can get anything from her to help us ID the victim.’

  ‘Have her parents been informed?’

  ‘That’s tricky, Jim. She’s clearly of age, she apparently lives independently, so is there any reason why we would inform them?’

  ‘Stop right there, Ted. Don’t start with the positive discrimination shit on top of everything else. You’re just making a rod that’s going to come back and beat you at some point. With all the comings and goings there, they’ll probably get to hear of it soon anyway. It might be politically expedient to let them know first. As a courtesy, if nothing else.’

  ‘Since when have you known me to be politically expedient, Jim?’ then, before the Big Boss could cut in, Ted went on, ‘Can we compromise on this? She clearly can’t stay here, with CSI all over the place. The smell is dire, for one thing. There’s a pathologist on the way because with the position the body’s in, we can’t get any idea of a cause of death so we really don’t know what we’re dealing with. Failing to report a death, clearly, but that might be the extent of it.

  ‘Let’s get her to the station as soon as we can, then once we’ve got someone to communicate properly with her, we’ll sort her out a solicitor and inform the parents. Are you happy with that?’

  ‘I’m not happy with anything involving Buller. Watch yourself, Ted. He’s a seriously nasty piece of work. He’ll be gunning for you from the start. And you know as well as I do there have been SIOs who’ve been thrown to the wolves by the top brass for the slightest mistake, to avoid any shit flying their way. We wouldn’t want to lose you. God knows you can be a bolshie little sod, but you’re bloody good at your job.’

  Ted chuckled. ‘Thanks, Jim. I love you too.’

  Chapter Three

  Jack Hargreaves was finishing a call on his radio when Ted went back into the flat.

  ‘Sorry, sir, we’re going to have to leave you to it. All three of us. It’s all kicking off in the town centre and they need all available units.’

  For a fleeting moment, Ted hoped Trev’s social night out hadn’t got out of hand, then pulled himself up short for even thinking it.

  ‘It’s fine, Jack. There really isn’t a lot we can do here until we at least have a clue as to the cause of death.’

  Jack called for Susan and the two of them hurried away down the stairs. Ted went to see how Jezza was getting on with Abigail, who was still sitting smiling serenely.

  Jezza turned her face towards him so Abigail wouldn’t be able to follow what she said.

  ‘I didn’t want to carry on until you were back in the room, boss. I know you said to record it, but I’m so worried about getting it wrong on this one.’

  ‘That’s fine, Jezza. We can’t really make much progress for the moment. Can you at least try to find out a name for the victim? That would be a helpful starting point.’

  Jezza had put the waiting time to good use, searching on her mobile for any words and signs which might help her to at least try to communicate with their only witness so far to what had happened in the apartment.

  ‘Abi,’ she began, facing her and speaking clearly, ‘Who,’ holding up an index finger and making a circle with it, then she went on, miming stroking a beard, ‘Who man in there?’ pointing towards the kitchen.

  Abigail laughed delightedly and clapped her hands in evident amusement. She shook her head, made a negative gesture with her hand, then used one finger to stroke her chin as she stuttered, ‘Nuh-nuh-nuh man. Buh-boy.’

  Jezza glanced at Ted again. ‘She has some cognitive skills then, if she’s aware of the difference.’ Then she turned back to Abigail, made a circling motion with her fist to her chest and said, ‘Sorry. Who boy?’

  Once more, Abigail signed as she tried to speak. ‘Ah-ah-tti.’

  Jezza looked puzzled and asked her to repeat it. Once she had, with a different hand gesture, Jezza spoke to Ted, with Abigail’s gaze glued to her face.

  ‘Well, she has me stumped there. She’s signing the word for coffee, so I don’t know what “atty” can be.’

  Abigail made a small sound of frustration, sensing she hadn’t been understood, then repeated the sound, but said, ‘Luh-luh-luh ...’ in front of it, distinctly, this time.

  ‘Latte,’ Ted and Jezza said in unison.

  Abigail smiled from one to another, pleased that she’d made them understand. Happy that she’d been able to help the nice lady who was being kind to her.

  ‘Is that a name or a nickname?’ Ted asked Jezza.

  ‘Boss, seriously? I’m already at the limit of what I can ask her. Can we please think about getting her to the station now and me handing over to someone who does know what they’re doing? Sorry to keep repeating myself, but I really am so worried I’m going to convey the wrong meaning to her.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, Jezza. You’re doing a great job. And please don’t worry. You know I’m here to head off any flak which might come your way. Show me how to thank her, can you, please.’

  Jezza made the gesture and Ted copied it, speaking directly to the young woman. ‘Thank you, Abigail.’

  Abi signed and stuttered. Jezza interpreted.

  ‘She said she likes you, boss. But she’s already told me she loves me. I get two hands over the heart. You only got one.’

  ‘Right, well, if you can explain to her that we want to take her to the station, I’ll just go and have a word with the CSM before we leave. Whatever happens, and whatever the cause of death turns out to be, we can’t leave Abigail here, with the state this place is in. She’s going to need a place of safety, and that might well involve the parents. And I really only want to involve them if it becomes essential.’

  ‘Mind she doesn’t bite you, boss,’ Jezza said to his retreating back, as Ted went to find the Crime Scene Manager. Then she concentrated her efforts on telling Abigail they needed to take her to the station. Although after her declaration of love, she had a feeling Abi would be quite happy to go anywhere with her.

  Ted stood just outside the open door to the kitchen, where the CSI team were concentrating their efforts. No attempt had been made to move the body or reposition it until the arrival of the pathologist. Ted hoped it was going to be Professor Bizzie Nelson, but suspected one of her assistants might be sent, at least in the first instance, until it became clear if the death was suspicious.

  ‘Ms Chowdhury, we’re going to get out of your way now. Thank you for your help.’

  She glared at him, clearly suspecting he was being sarcastic. She saw no trace of it in his expression, but she didn’t respond.

  ‘Perhaps if you come across anything at all which might help us, you’d be kind enough to let me know. I’ll leave you my direct number, just in case.’

  ‘I don’t know how you’re used to working with your usual CSM – Doug, isn’t it? – but I don’t do guesswork. I do science. I’ve made a concession in giving you a very approximate timeline for how long the body has been in place, but that’s as far as it goes. And since Doug seems to have been careless enough to put his back out tripping over a cat, I personally wouldn’t set much store by his powers of observation.’

  ‘Ms Chowdhury, have I done something to offend you? Apart from not introducing myself right at the beginning, for which I have already apologised. Doug is an excellent CSM and we get on well. I also have cats, including one which he gave me. As I said before, if you and I are going to be working together, it would help if we could at least be civil.’

  She finally pulled down her mask so he could see more of her face. There was a flash of something different in her eyes now. The slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘This is me being civil. You shou
ld avoid me on a bad day. Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit sharp. Call it an automatic defence weapon. You’d be surprised, in this day and age, how many cavemen SIOs I encounter who insist on calling me “love” or “darling” and talking to me as if I were still at school.’

  Ted gave her his most disarming grin. ‘Imagine what it’s like for me actually being called Darling. Not to mention being a skinny little runt and living with another man. And seven cats.’

  ‘Seven?’ she almost smiled at that. ‘Well, since you’ve at least been polite, I will say that if I do happen to find anything useful, I’ll give you a call.’

  As Ted reached the still-open front door, she called after him.

  ‘Carnivorous plants.’

  Ted turned and looked back at her as she stood framed in the kitchen doorway, still with her mask pulled down.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s what I keep. No cats. No domestic animals. But I have a collection of carnivorous plants. Whenever I feed them, I think of whichever misogynist I’ve had a run-in with most recently. You can join up the dots about my thinking for yourself.’

  Despite the grim circumstances surrounding them, Ted chuckled.

  ‘I can understand that.’

  Then as he turned again to go, she added, ‘And a knife wound from the front. If I had to make any kind of an educated guess, based on my observations of the scene, that would be it. It would fit with the large quantity of blood. And also with a drawer standing open. One which contained various utensils, including some good quality kitchen knives.’

  Jezza was standing outside the car, Abigail safely installed in the back seat, when Ted came out of the building.

  ‘Sorry, boss, I thought the smell was bad enough in the flat, but it’s clinging to Abi, too. To her clothes, at least. I didn’t fancy it at close quarters until I had to. How can she be on her own like that, when she clearly can’t manage?’

  ‘I’m trying not to jump to any conclusions until we have all the facts. Perhaps if I drive and you sit in the front passenger seat it might not be too bad. As long as you can turn round so she can see your face and your hands if you have to communicate with her on the way. Does she understand where we’re taking her, do you think?’

  ‘I did my best, boss. I think she understands we’re taking her to the station, although I’m not sure she has any idea of what’s going on, really. I just hope they’ve found us a proper interpreter for her.’

  ‘Ms Chowdhury thawed enough to tell me there’s a possibility that the victim died as a result of a knife wound to the front. Do you think Abigail understands that this Latte, whoever he is, is dead?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Sometimes I think she doesn’t understand much at all. Yet she differentiated between man and boy, so there’s clearly some comprehension there.

  ‘Boss, speculating here, which I know you don’t like, but if he died from a knife wound, and if it was Abi who stabbed him, should we at least consider the possibility that she’s another victim in this? That she might have been assaulted by him? Raped, even? So should we arrange a medical examination to cover that possibility?’

  ‘I think the only answer with this one is to cover all bases from the beginning. But I can’t see how we can proceed to anything like that if we can’t find a proper interpreter for her.

  ‘One thing which did strike me at the scene was that spyhole in the door. Sergeant Morgan said she opened up to them reasonably quickly. She must have been able to see that it was the police outside her door, yet she let them in willingly enough. Not the normal reaction of a guilty person at a murder scene, but that could just be her limited comprehension.

  ‘Then again, she seemed reluctant to talk to Susan, in her uniform, but you made a connection with her instantly. There’s clearly a lot about her we don’t yet fully understand.’

  ‘If the body has been there long enough to be in that state, that must surely mean that no one has been to the flat in all that time. Is she just there by herself, expected to manage?’

  ‘If the case is one for us, we’ll need to look into all aspects of it. For now, we should get her to the station, at least.’

  A man with a dog was walking past. The dog went to sniff at something and the man jerked it back to heel with a savage yank of the lead. He snapped something at it in a language which wasn’t English.

  He turned into a side street and took out his phone to make a call. This time he spoke in English which was heavily accented.

  ‘The police are here. And I can’t see any of our friends.’

  ‘Damn!’ a man’s voice replied. ‘This is a disaster waiting to happen. Find them, Ivan. Find me an expendable one who’ll talk. Above all, find me the Chosen One. I don’t want to lose that one.

  ‘Yes, Mr Beeg.’

  Ted drove while Jezza sat in the front, turning occasionally to reassure Abi and try to keep her informed of what was happening, as best she could, with help from gestures she researched on her mobile phone.

  ‘Did you manage to make her understand that she’s not under arrest?’

  ‘Boss, at the risk of repeating myself, the vocabulary for that wasn’t something which tended to come up, leading children round an indoor school on hairy ponies. I’ve tried my best, but the sign for police did strike me as looking a bit like putting the first handcuff on.’

  ‘Sorry, Jezza, I’m asking a lot of you and I appreciate your efforts. As long as we do our best ...’

  He was interrupted by his mobile phone ringing. He put it on speaker, hoping Abigail really couldn’t hear much. The frosty tones of Superintendent Debra Caldwell, the Ice Queen.

  ‘Chief Inspector. I imagine that at some point you were going to inform me personally that you were bringing in Councillor Buller’s daughter.’

  ‘Ahh. Ma’am, sorry, I can’t talk now. I’m driving and I have the person in question in the car.’

  Ted opted for the formality in response to her opener.

  It was an excuse and a lame one, but he wanted to buy himself some time.

  ‘I see. Well, I’m also driving. On my way to the station. So we’ll talk there shortly.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Jezza said, half under her breath. ‘Now you know why I’m not interested in climbing the ranks and having to deal with cases like this.’

  Wherever the incident which had taken the Uniform officers away was happening, there was nothing on Ted’s drive back to the station to delay them. If anything, the streets were quieter than normal for a Friday evening.

  Once they’d arrived and parked, Jezza opened the door to let Abigail out and started to explain to her, her hands working to put in the words she knew.

  ‘Abi, this is the police house. We work here. We want to talk to you in there. Give you a cup of tea or coffee. Would you like that?’

  Abigail signed and spoke. ‘Es p’ease,’ then made another gesture.

  ‘Toilet? You need the loo again? Okay, we can do that too.’

  ‘Jezza, can you please take Abi to the ladies then take her to the vulnerable witness room. I’ll go and report in. See where we’re up to on that interpreter, and a doctor.’

  He turned to Abigail so she could clearly see his lips and did his best with some accompanying gestures, which he hoped would make sense. ‘Abigail, can you go in there with Jezza? Thank you.’

  The main entrance was closed by this time on a Friday evening. The days of a front-desk presence round the clock were long gone. Another visible face of the cuts. Ted used his pass card to let them in at the side entrance then left Jezza to see to Abigail while he went in search of Irene, the Duty Inspector, and to find where the Ice Queen was.

  He found them both in a buzzing Control room, carefully monitoring a lively situation in the town centre. CCTV screens showed two groups of largely middle-aged men engaged in violent confrontation, hurling any missiles they could lay hands on at one another.

  ‘What’s kicked it off this time?’ Ted asked them.

  ‘Who knows,’
Irene replied. ‘Football? Religion? Politics? One half of the town seems to permanently hate the other at the moment. It’s just the reason why that varies, and sometimes old adversaries become allies. All I know is it’s stretching our available officers to the limit, which is why I had to pull three back off your case, Ted.

  ‘And before you bloody ask, your Macaroon interpreter, or whatever it’s called, has been the last thing on my mind, funnily enough, but I have tried. The best I’ve found you to date is a young lass from a local care home who’s got some Brownie badge in it or something. But it’s better than bugger all and she’s on her way. Plus the doc should be here in,’ she glanced at the time, ‘ten minutes or so. But as you can see, we’ve been a bit busy in here.’

  ‘Makaton. And thank you. Any officers injured?’

  ‘I’ve got one young PC at Stepping Hill having his scalp stitched back to his head. Lots of blood, but I’m told it’s not serious. Not one of our brightest, so it might even improve him. If I had water cannon at my disposal, I’d be giving the order to use them right about now. Only joking, ma’am,’ Irene added hastily in the Ice Queen’s direction, knowing how formal she could be.

  The Superintendent surprised both Irene and Ted by a brief smile and a quiet, ‘I might even sign off on it, Inspector.’

  Then she looked at Ted and said, ‘I think perhaps we should find somewhere quiet while you fill me in on the potential case involving Councillor Buller’s daughter.’

  She led the way to her office, nodded for Ted to sit down and went to her coffee machine. It always seemed to be on. Her first reflex action on entering the room must have been to set it in motion. Ted would normally avoid coffee in the evening but he had a feeling it could be a long night and he might well be glad of it.

  ‘Tell me what we’re facing so far,’ she instructed, as she put delicate floral mugs in front of both of them.

  Ted did so, succinctly. As he was finishing up on the sparse details to date, his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out to check the screen.