The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird

by L M Krier

  ‘It’s Professor Nelson calling. She might hopefully have an update for me.’

  The Super nodded to him to take the call.

  ‘Just a very quick call, Edwin, to give you the heads-up on what I know so far, as I imagine you need all the info you can get. None of this is confirmed, of course, until I do a full post-mortem. I understand that the flat occupant is the daughter of the utterly loathsome Councillor Buller. Is that right?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I’ve encountered him several times in various settings. Suffice it to say that I would be delighted were I to be in the position of autopsying his body before too much longer.

  ‘But back to our current body. I believe young Ms Chowdhury has already speculated on a frontal knife wound. We’ve now turned the body and I can confirm that that is in fact the case. A really rather nice French kitchen knife, all one piece, blade and handle, pushed in as far as it would go. It’s highly unlikely your victim would have survived very long at all, in the circumstances.

  ‘I can’t, of course, speculate whether or not this was a murder. Not until I carry out a full post-mortem. However, I would just say that, even with the level of decomposition making it rather tricky, I can’t immediately see any defensive wounds. On the contrary, from a postural point of view, it looks rather as if the hands were clasped to the wound area after the knife entered, if that’s helpful. And it’s certainly not self-inflicted, I would say with a degree of confidence.’

  ‘Now to our victim. As ever, this is all very guarded until the PM. All I can tell you so far, since I know you’ll be keen to get an early ID, is that the body is male, young – late teens at a rough guess – and rather on the tall and lanky side, if that helps.’

  ‘Skinny Latte!’ Ted exclaimed, then explained to Bizzie, ‘The flat occupant gave us his name as Latte. We thought it might be a nickname, so that makes sense now. Thanks so much, Bizzie, you’ve been a great help. Any idea when you can do me a full PM?’

  ‘The impossible I do today, Edwin. Miracles will have to wait until late Monday morning, if that suits you?’

  ‘Marvellous, thank you.’

  He ended the call and looked at the Ice Queen.

  ‘Early days but she wanted to let me know that it’s looking as if he was stabbed by someone and he wasn’t expecting the blow.’

  ‘So now we have to contend with the possibility of Buller’s daughter being a prime suspect for a murder case. It just gets better.’

  There was the briefest of knocks on the door and Irene’s head appeared round it.

  ‘Ma’am, sorry, but this is definitely one for you. There was a commotion at the front door. It sounded like someone trying to kick it down. I sent officers to check and they found a very angry Councillor Buller ranting that we’ve wrongfully arrested his daughter. He’s with his wife. I’ve parked them in reception with an officer to watch them, but I can’t really spare a babysitter. Can I safely leave this one to you and the DCI?’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Are you happy to handle the delightful Councillor Buller, Ted? Only I should be here overseeing. But call me if you think a bit more rank is needed, even if I’m not in uniform and sporting my shiny crown.’

  She was casually dressed and looked as if she might have been called away from a relaxed meal out somewhere with her long-suffering husband, an inspector in Traffic. Out of uniform she looked younger but still formidable.

  ‘If it helps, I can liaise from here with the doctor when she arrives. I believe there was a specific request for a female doctor. And with the Makaton interpreter when they get here.

  ‘Thank you. Yes, DC Vine raised the possibility that Abigail may have acted in self-defence in the face of abuse of some sort. Possibly sexual. I’ll go and see what I can do to placate the councillor, but as Abigail is of age, I’m not sure he has any right to see her at this stage.’

  ‘I’ll trust your judgement on this Ted, as in all things. But I’m here should you need me.’

  He was encouraged and somewhat surprised by her words. He hoped her faith in him was justified in what was likely to be a tricky encounter.

  There was a PC from Uniform in the dimly lit reception area. Councillor Buller was striding up and down. A big man, bulky, with a florid complexion, who looked dangerously close to exploding.

  The person Ted took to be his wife was the polar opposite. A tiny, thin figure, she sat demurely on a chair, knees together, feet to the side, her eyes following every movement her husband made with nervous anticipation.

  Ted could smell her expensive perfume from yards away. Everything about her reeked of money, from the clothes she was wearing to the exquisitely cut and styled platinum blonde hair. Not to mention the flawless complexion, devoid of even the hint of a wrinkle. A face totally immobile and lacking in any expression, apart from the eyes. Deep violet-blue, showcased by tautly-stretched surrounding skin which made her look permanently startled.

  ‘Thank you, PC Grover, I’ll take over from here,’ Ted told the waiting constable, who looked glad of the chance to slip away. Then he turned to the pacing man and said, ‘Councillor Buller? I’m DCI Darling ...’

  Before he could go any further, Buller bellowed, ‘Are you the cretin who’s arrested my daughter? Where is she? I demand to see her.’

  ‘Perhaps if you’d both come with me, we can sit down and I’ll explain everything to you. I can start by assuring you that Abigail is not under arrest. We merely want to talk to her at this stage and that wasn’t possible at her flat.’

  ‘I demand to see her. Before we go any further.’

  Ted ignored his bluster and turned instead to the seated woman.

  ‘Mrs Buller? Would you please come with me and I’ll give you all the details I can at this stage.’

  Ted led the way to the nearest interview room, reached in to put the lights on and stood aside to let the woman go in first. Councillor Buller barged in front of her. As soon as they were all inside and Ted had shut the door, he rounded on him again.

  ‘I don’t like your attitude. We want to see Abigail. Now. You shouldn’t be speaking to her without us there. She can’t cope. She’s retarded.’

  His wife put out a timid hand to restrain him.

  ‘Frank, you mustn’t say that. She’s learning disabled. Abigail has learning difficulties, inspector.’

  ‘Please sit down, both of you, then we can talk properly.’

  ‘She needs a solicitor. Before anyone talks to her.’

  Buller was still standing, looking belligerent, but his wife sat down as instructed, looking anxiously from him to Ted as she did so.

  Ted didn’t raise his voice but his tone was firm. He wanted to be in control of this situation right from the start.

  ‘Councillor Buller, please sit down.’

  He did so. Not with good grace.

  ‘First let me assure you both that Abigail seems to be uninjured. But we are, as a precaution, getting a doctor to examine her and assess her fitness for interview.’

  ‘She has the right to a solicitor. I’ll call mine.’ Buller was already pulling out his mobile phone when Ted cut in.

  ‘If you’d perhaps first allow me to fill you in on what we know for now. Abigail is, of course, entitled to a solicitor, but at present the only people having contact with her will be the doctor, one of my female officers, with whom she’s already formed a bond and a Makaton interpreter who is on her way.

  ‘We were called to Abigail’s flat following complaints from neighbours about a smell ...’

  Once again Buller interrupted.

  ‘Bloody nosy people. That’s easily sorted. I’ll get a cleaner, if Abi has been letting things slide.’

  ‘Perhaps you would allow me to finish? It’s not, unfortunately, a cleaning issue, but rather a suspicious death. We found a body in Abigail’s kitchen.’

  Mrs Buller’s hand flew to her mouth in a gesture of surprise. Her frozen face showed little reaction.

  ‘Abigail liv
es alone, as I understand it. Could you tell me, please, when was the last time either of you visited her at the flat?’

  Buller’s colour darkened further. ‘What are you insinuating? We’re in regular touch with Abigail. But she has her own life, her own friends.’

  ‘And do you know the names of these friends? Would the name Latte mean anything to either of you? Perhaps as someone Abigail is friends with?’

  ‘Latte? Never heard of such a name. Have you, Harriet? It sounds foreign.’ He said it with an expression of distaste.

  ‘Oh, poor darling Abigail. Somebody died in her flat? How horrible for her. I FaceTimed her a couple of evenings ago and she was absolutely fine. Telling me about making herself something for tea, and how she was looking forward to going to Wilmslow with me for some shopping and beauty therapy.’

  ‘Is Abigail able to express herself verbally to that extent, Mrs Buller? Or do you use Makaton when you speak to her?’

  ‘We don’t use any of that hand signal stuff with our daughter,’ Buller said dismissively. ‘Her mother understands her perfectly well without, don’t you, dear? Mothers do.’

  ‘Mrs Buller, I don’t want to upset you, but the information we have to date suggests that if you spoke to your daughter just a couple of days ago, then the body was already in her kitchen. It could have been there for up to a week. Are you sure there wasn’t anything Abigail might have said, or tried to say, which could have indicated she needed help with a problem?’

  ‘I don’t like your tone, inspector. You should think about who you’re dealing with here. One phone call from me to a person in high authority and you could find yourself off this case faster than you might imagine.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, sir?’ Ted asked him, his tone polite. ‘If so, please don’t. I don’t like being threatened when I’m doing my job.’

  He turned calmly back to the wife and continued, ‘Anything at all, Mrs Buller? Was there anything Abigail said or gestured which was out of the ordinary in any way?’

  She looked confused now, looking rapidly from Ted to her husband and back again.

  ‘Well, no, not that I recall. But I was in a hurry. Frank, my husband, and I, were going out and he was getting impatient. He’d got the car out and I could hear he was revving the engine. I promised Abigail I’d see her as soon as I could, but I haven’t had the time to arrange anything since then.’

  ‘That’s right, woman, blame it on me. It’s always my fault,’ Buller retorted.

  ‘I really don’t think this is helping. My main priorities at the moment are identifying the deceased and ensuring Abigail’s welfare at all times. With that in mind, I think I should now go and see what progress, if any, has been made in finding her an interpreter, and if the doctor is here yet.

  ‘I would ask you both to please stay in this room for the moment. I’ll try to arrange some tea or coffee for you, but you must understand we have an ongoing serious incident in the town centre. Councillor Buller, please feel free to call a solicitor for Abi, although of course they cannot be present while she is examined by a doctor. But above all, please stay here. It won’t be helpful to anyone if you start wandering around the station. I promise to keep you informed at all times.’

  Ted went first to the Control room. Irene was still there but the Ice Queen wasn’t. Things seemed to be calming down somewhat, by what he could see on the monitors.

  ‘Where’s the Super?’

  ‘Back in her office updating the top brass on the situations we have going on here. Your sign language lady has arrived, and the doc. They’re both with Abigail now, with Jezza sitting in. How’s it going with Buller? Is he as bad as his reputation suggests?’

  ‘I seriously think he should ask for a refund on his Charm School course,’ Ted said with a grin. ‘How’s the injured officer?’

  ‘Discharged and gone home. He should be fine. It might even have knocked some sense into him finally, and there was certainly a need for that.’

  ‘I’d better go and update the Super. Irene, I know you’re still flat out, but if you could please find someone to take a cup of tea to the Bullers in Interview Room 1, I’d be really grateful. Especially if someone could keep half an eye out to make sure he doesn’t start wandering round opening doors. The last thing we need is for him to blunder in on his daughter being intimately examined by the doctor, and perhaps breaking all the trust she’s built up in us so far.’

  Irene gave an exaggerated sigh as she said, ‘Because of course my officers have nothing better to do than be fetchers of tea. But since you are one of the few CID officers I’ve worked with who always remembers to say please and thank you to us humble minions, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Ted went and tapped on the Super’s office door, before putting his head round to see if she was free. She was on her mobile phone but waved him in and indicated a chair.

  ‘As soon as I get any update, I’ll let you know. She’s with the doctor now.’

  When she ended the call, she told Ted, ‘The ACC. I thought I’d better take it to a higher level straight away, in view of the involvement of Councillor Buller. I suspect he will lose no opportunity to make political capital out of this, however it turns out. We shall all have to tread very carefully.’

  She stood up and went to refill their coffee mugs in a reflex gesture.

  ‘He’s already threatened to have me thrown off the case. He reckons he could do it with one phone call.’

  She gave a snort of contempt. ‘Perhaps he could, with some officers. Unfortunately for him, you are the Force’s secret weapon, Ted. A squeaky clean and excellent record. Everything always by the book. And astute enough never to beat the Chief at squash.’

  Ted had to laugh at that. ‘I couldn’t, even if I wanted to, although I always try my best to.’

  ‘Precisely, which is why you have his respect.’

  Ted’s blushes were spared by a knock on the door. Jezza came in, in response to the Ice Queen’s summons.

  ‘Ma’am, boss, I thought I’d update you with what we know so far. The doctor’s still examining Abi. There are no signs of violence to date. But the doctor did find something which might complicate things a bit. She’s pregnant. She clearly had no idea. We’re not even sure she understands what it means but she’s quite calm about the whole thing. She’s very docile. It’s easy to see how she could be manipulated by someone, in so many ways.’

  ‘Thanks, Jezza. How’s it going with her? How’s the Makaton interpreter doing?’

  ‘She’s very nice and very helpful, boss, but she says herself her vocabulary isn’t going to be anything like enough to cope with questioning Abi about possible sexual assault. Or even about her relationships in general on that kind of level. She works in an elderly care home so what she knows is geared at that level of client, where pregnancy doesn’t often come up in discussion. We’re going to need someone with much more specific training and I doubt we’re going to find anyone at short notice, certainly not at this time on a Friday evening.’

  ‘This potentially complicates things even further,’ the Super said. ‘Sit down, DC Vine. Would you like coffee?’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am, but I think I’d better get back. I seem to be building something of a rapport with Abi which might be useful to us, perhaps.’

  ‘Your thoughts, Ted?’ the Ice Queen asked him as soon as Jezza had left them.

  ‘Until I hear more from either Professor Nelson or Ms Chowdhury at the scene, we’ve no way of knowing if Abigail is a murderer or a victim of something, who was acting in self-defence. We’ve certainly nothing at all to charge her with at this stage. Equally, we clearly can’t let her go back to her flat.’

  His mobile phone interrupted him. He glanced at the screen.

  ‘It’s the CSM. I’d better take it. It might hopefully give us something more to go on.’

  ‘You asked me to call you if anything else came up as we worked the scene,’ Priya Chowdhury began, by way of greeting. ‘The body’s been
recovered now so we’ve been able to get at some of the cupboards which it was blocking us from opening.

  ‘So does your “anything at all which might be helpful to us” include what to my inexperienced eyes looks like a very valuable stash of Class A drugs?’

  ‘Drugs?’ Ted echoed, looking towards the Super as he spoke. ‘Right, thank you for that. If you can let me know when you’ve finished on site I’ll need to arrange for specialist officers to come and recover them to get them analysed.’

  ‘Well, at least it gives us our reason to hold her for questioning,’ the Ice Queen said dryly as Ted rang off. ‘Do I understand drugs have been found on the premises? In which case you will need to proceed to a caution before you can question her further.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can, without a specially trained Makaton interpreter. If Buller calls up his solicitor, they’re not going to allow Abigail to say anything at all. Could we look at releasing her on pre-charge bail, conditional on her living at her parents’ address?’

  ‘We could. I’d be happy to sign off on that. I think I should be present when you tell them, and we should perhaps wait for the solicitor to be there as well. That way, as far as I can see, we’ve covered all bases.’

  ‘I agree. I don’t see that there’s anything else we can usefully do for now. I’ll come in tomorrow and we’ll make a start on identifying who our victim is. We’ll begin with door-to-door of the neighbouring flats. With any luck, a building like that has plenty of security cameras in place which might help us. And I might as well let Jezza go home. She’s looking a bit tired.’

  ‘I noticed that. Is she all right?’

  ‘It can’t be easy, living with her brother Tommy. He doesn’t seem to need sleep like most people do and I think it takes its toll sometimes.

  ‘Debs, it’s early days, but it seems to me possible that we’re looking at a case of cuckooing here. An unidentified young male in the flat, perhaps crashing there, with a stash of drugs. Abigail is the perfect target. Living alone, vulnerable, perhaps eager for friendship. She might have let him in easily enough without understanding she was being used.’