‘You come from that area don’t you Benny?’ said Vic.
‘Yes. My parents live in Ongar.’
‘Shame that mate. That would have been ideal for you. Still maybe they will ask for extra troops later on.’
God. I hope not, thought Benny. Still. It would be good to have an update from Brian as to how things are progressing.
As the next few days unfolded the Humble Murder Enquiry Team were getting nowhere with their investigation. There were no witnesses. No forensic evidence and no murder weapon, as this was lying two miles away submerged in the river.
The media coverage carried on for several days and groups of uniform Police officers could be seen carrying out a fingertip search of the fields on either side of Mill lane. The immediate Area was flooded with detectives carrying out house to house enquiries but a team focussing on the local gipsy site received limited cooperation from the residents even though they demanded that the Police do something about the Murder of that “Lovely Boy ” that was Levi Humble.
Benny later learned from Kevin Kelly that the suggestion put forward regarding a feud was apparently based on some criminal intelligence gathered by the Force Intelligence Bureau from an informant. There had apparently been a falling out between the Humbles and another gipsy family, the Tanners, over the proceeds of a large burglary which resulted in a brawl at the Blacksmith’s Arms in the nearby village of Stondon Massey.
There had been threats to kill made by the Humbles at the time of the fight and subsequently whenever they came across each other there was a lot of tension. This was exactly what was needed as far as Benny was concerned.
Only a week after the despatch of Levi Humble, Benny called in to the shop to see his parents. Joyce was full of it. They didn’t often have this kind of thing happen in the area. She told Benny that the Police had visited the shop in the normal course of their enquiries but there was nothing that Joyce or Mrs Brooks could tell them about Levi Humble other than that he was quite a regular customer and was not considered to be a very pleasant man.
When Ivor was able to speak with Benny alone he told him that he had not seen Sidney Humble, or any other members of his family, at all in the past week.
Ivor asked him, ‘You dealt with him did you son?’ ‘Yes dad. It wasn’t nice. But it was the only way to protect you and the family. Nobody saw me and I said nothing to the man.’ ‘Good. We will say no more about it.’
As the weeks passed the investigation dwindled. The Police had few lines of enquiry to follow and eventually the case closed and the seconded officers were returned to their various home Divisions. Life returned to normal and fortunately Sidney Humble made no further attempt to carry on the extortion of cash from Ivor’s business. Clearly, he either did not have the brain or the heart to do so.
Chapter 53 – The box.
Ryan Ingram was an old “Rocker” who had been a roadie for various bands in the 60s and 70s starting with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and ending with his last gig with the Progressive Rock band Argent. Somewhere along the way he had taken up with his partner of 15 years, Sophie Taylor. They were inseparable sharing everything including their Heroin.
Ryan and Sophie now lived in a Council flat which was located just off of the Town Centre. It had two bedrooms, living room, kitchenette and bathroom. It also had a balcony on which, in the warmer months, they would sit and chill out while they listened to various old music albums. They were on the second floor which afforded them a view of the sea. It was a blissful way of life for a few years but it began to kill any ambition in them and in the end they were imprisoned by their own laziness.
Both Ryan and Sophie were addicted to Heroin and over a ten year period they had made several attempts to get clean which, had they not been together, either or both might have achieved. Unfortunately, such was their relationship that one would draw the other back in to the habit. They were now living on State Benefits and receiving repeat prescriptions of Methadone. Although Ryan and Sophie appeared slim and fit they were both malnourished, emaciated and wasted.
Sophie still had her long blonde hair. She had long shapely legs and pert breasts. From behind Sophie had the appearance of a beautiful young girl. When she turned around however, one would be shocked by her drawn, skeletal visage. She was only 37 years of age but she might just as well have been 73.
Ryan was a tall, spare individual with long greying dark hair and a hooked nose. He looked for all the world like the American singer “Tiny Tim.”
Although Ryan and Sophie spent time on the balcony they would, although not really drinkers themselves, often sit with a gaggle of winos and addicts in one of the shelters on the sea-front. They would sit, chat, and smoke cannabis and sell the odd ampoule of Methadone to others if they had enough in hand.
Then, one particular week Ryan started to come to the shelter alone. He was asked about Sophie and he initially told the others that she was at home and unwell. When one or two suggested that they might visit her Ryan told them that she had gone to stay for a few days with her sister in London. After four weeks or so, neighbours began to notice that there was a pervasive, rancid smell throughout the block. The Council Health Department were called to the building but they could not find the source of the smell. Another week went by and Ryan, out of his head on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, staggered into the front office of Lee-over-sands Police Station. He pushed himself in front of the young man who was being attended to and blurted out ‘I’ve done for my Girlfriend! I’ve done her in!’
Ryan was promptly ejected from the Police Station by the front office Pc who had decided that he was just a nuisance drunk. Ryan sat on the steps and would not move away. He then accosted Brian Johnson who was just entering the front door and he repeated his declaration, ‘I’ve killed her. She’s gone.’
Brian Johnson ushered Ryan into the front office and sat him down. Thankfully, there were no longer any other members of the public in the foyer at the time. Ryan would not have created much of a problem if there had of been. Brian had him under control and he presented quite a pathetic figure. Brian spoke to the Pc behind the counter and asked him to summon assistance from the CID office. Ryan was then taken into the Charge room where he was questioned about his earlier claims and the location of the victim. Ryan was just able to give his address before he lost consciousness and was taken by ambulance to hospital, under escort.
Brian Johnson then had the unenviable task of taking a team to check the address armed with the set of keys found in Ryan’s pocket.
On arrival at the flat the smell pricked their nostrils as soon as they opened the main door at ground level and it became quite overpowering as they unlocked Ryan’s front door. This was enough to convince Brian Johnson that they did indeed have a crime scene so he called for officers from the Scenes of Crime department to attend. But where was the body? They undertook a careful search of the flat but they found nothing until they reached the main bedroom.
There was an old trunk in the corner of the room that had books piled on top of it. Terry Connor was the man brave enough to open the trunk and as he opened the lid, what they saw made them recoil in horror. There in the trunk was the almost decomposed body of a woman who, due to the attendant circumstances, they took to be Sophie Taylor. Brian instructed Terry to shut the lid. The body would have to be removed from the trunk at the Mortuary and he certainly had no wish to delve into the contents then and there. Terry and Benny were, much to their horror, nominated to cover the Post Mortem.
Brian Johnson ensured that an instruction was quickly passed back to the detectives at the hospital to the effect that, as soon as Ryan regained consciousness, he should be informed that he was being arrested on suspicion of Murder.
The following day a Post Mortem was held at the District Hospital which was carried out by the Home Office Pathologist Professor Edmund Murray. Terry Connor and Benny stood to one side in the Mortuary, their job being to observe the whole process and witness any relevant finds.
A task for which they had had to don the requisite gowns and masks. The moment that Terry and Benny had been dreading soon arrived. The trunk was lifted onto the examination table by two mortuary assistants who then opened the lid carefully easing the contents onto the table. What came out was a black skeleton with the head almost decomposed back to the skull. The body had been clothed but the flesh had decomposed to such an extent that it was almost reduced to fluid. The smell was indescribable but after a while they almost got used to it. It didn’t appear to bother the mortuary staff one bit.
It crossed Benny’s mind that Levi Humble would have had a Post Mortem of his own but that it was likely to have been, a lot less complicated. He scolded himself for dwelling on the matter. Humble was no longer relevant. He was history.
The Pathologist went about his business as best he could but he was limited since the state of the body had become severely reduced. He took various samples from the body for analysis.
At one point Terry was summoned from the room by a lady mortuary assistant to take a telephone call from Brian Johnson who wanted an update. He told Brian that, as things stood, the Pathologist was having great trouble establishing a cause of death. Terry wished that he had not taken the phone call because while doing so he had breathed relatively fresh air. When he re-entered the examination room the stench hit him for a second time and he had to get acquainted with it all over again.
On completion of the Post Mortem the situation was the same as that explained by Terry to Brian Johnson. No cause of death could be established as the body was too far decomposed. Tests on the various samples were also to prove inconclusive. All that could be said was that Sophie had been dead for around five or six weeks.
But what would Ryan Ingram have to say about the situation? He was interviewed at length in the presence of his solicitor who had made a representation to the Station Sergeant that in his opinion Ryan was unfit to be detained. This notion was later dismissed by a Police Surgeon who following an examination in the Doctor’s Room declared that Ryan was fit for detention and interview.
Various questions around the facts of the case were put to Ryan but on the advice of his solicitor he replied ‘No Comment.’
During a search of the flat officers had discovered the details of the Doctor who had issued Sophie’s repeat prescriptions and those of the Chemist where the Methadone was regularly collected. Evidence came to light that throughout the “Disappearance” of Sophie, Ryan had ordered and collected the Methadone prescribed to them both, signing her prescriptions as her “Representative.” Ryan Ingram was charged with Murder but due to the fact that no cause of death could be proved the charge was later reduced to Unlawful Concealment of a Body. He went to prison for 12 months.
Chapter 54 – A gentleman to see you.
It was December 1980. Benny and Felicity had set a date for their Wedding, which was to be held on Saturday 9th May of the following year. The honeymoon was yet to be arranged but Felicity favoured the possibility of a cruise in the Caribbean. Fred had insisted that he would cover the cost, as his wedding present, and so a grateful Benny had felt inclined to go along with the idea. Life was sweet and their relationship was growing stronger by the day.
They both had their careers and they had managed to settle into a pattern of affording each other the space to pursue their own interests. Felicity, for her part, had had enough of past boyfriends who had been possessive and clingy. She was intelligent and very ambitious and she greatly appreciated Benny for having the confidence to allow her to be her own person.
Felicity was doing well developing her business and as her father Fred settled more into retirement, she was given a freer hand. This enabled her to put into practise her own ideas for expansion of the company.
Benny’s career was also moving forward and he was becoming highly regarded by both his peers and senior officers. He had taken a fatalistic attitude to the matter of Levi Humble and he had been almost totally successful in pushing the circumstances to the back of his mind, that is until Brian Johnson had dropped into a conversation, a couple of days previously, the fact that Benny’s home town was Ongar. This had thrown Benny somewhat but he recovered his composure when the boss qualified the remark by saying that he was sorry that he had been unable to second Benny on the case as his local knowledge might have proved useful.
Benny had managed to focus and study hard for his Sergeant’s examination which he sat with around forty others at the Colchester Institute. This entailed the candidate sitting three papers which were- Crime, Traffic and General Police Duties. To be successful a pass mark of at least 50% was required for each. If a candidate were to pass two out of three papers they were only required to re-sit the failed subject the following year.
In the event, after rigorously studying all aspects of the syllabus, Detective Constable Extraordinaire Benjamin Cohen, managed to fail the Crime paper and pass the other two.
He told Felicity, on seeing her after the exam, that he suspected that he had spent too long on the first two Crime questions and that he had simply left himself insufficient time to do justice to questions three and four. This proved to be the case and he found that he had only achieved a 48% mark on Crime.
Benny wanted to keep this failure quiet at work but his colleagues somehow managed to find out. As the Head of CID on the Division, Brian Johnson wasn’t at all impressed that, as a crime specialist, Benny had failed a subject he should have excelled in. The lads and lasses on CID, ripped the piss out of him. But he knew that he would pass the Crime paper the following year.
He wanted to progress on the CID. That was where it was at as far as he was concerned.
He set himself a target of promotion within the next three years and if he was lucky he would go straight to Detective Sergeant without having to go back to uniform. Something which was currently fashionable on the spurious basis of “career development.” Somehow it never worked the other way around. Uniform officers were not moved to CID for the same reason so officers who wished to remain on CID were often put off of taking the examination at all.
Benny’s idea of progress also entailed a secondment to the Regional Crime Squad where he would encounter organised crime and travelling criminals. These goals would be achieved, all in good time.
For now, it was 3.35pm on a Friday afternoon and Benny was sitting in the “Crow’s Nest.” He was dealing with overdue case papers, typing up his Crime Reports and in the process using copious amounts of Tippex correction fluid.
He was due to go on holiday the following day. He was intending to go skiing with Felicity in Austria and he had to get through his “paper” before he could do so, otherwise he would have a major headache to deal with on his return to work. To say that Benny was “a bit busy,” would have been a gross under-statement.
He was not alone in the office and when the telephone rang Vic Woodward grabbed the handset ‘CID. Dc Woodward.’
‘Front office here. Is Benny Cohen in the office?’
‘Yeah. I’ll put him on.’
‘Dc Cohen speaking.’
‘Benny. There’s a gentleman to see you at the front counter. A Mr Sidney Humble. Does that mean anything to you?’
An Oik's Progress Page 24
