A Killing Karma (8 page)

'A gangland
killing, you reckon, boss?’ Catt asked as he came up behind him.

Casey heard
Merriman tutting to himself at this supposition, but he ignored him and turned
to answer Catt. He noticed his sergeant's hair, his pride and joy, had been
liberally plastered with hairspray this morning to keep it in place whatever
the weather might do to dislodge the perfectly coiffed locks. It looked as
stiff as a board and about as movable.

‘The
viciousness certainly makes that a strong possibility, ThomCatt.' Casey had
checked, but no identification had been found on the corpse. Either he hadn't
carried anything or his killer had removed the victim's wallet in an attempt to
delay identification. For now, at the start of the case, anything was possible.

For several
more moments, Casey studied the body. The dead man was lying amongst the
alley's detritus, curled into a foetal position. It was as if the body had
accepted that death, and as many of the indignities it could contrive, would
come for him on swift-winged heels and had tried to prepare for its arrival by
protecting his remaining
in situ
private parts.

Casey took
Catt's arm and drew him aside. They walked to the end of the alley, away from
the busyness of the immediate scene and its milling forensic and photography
teams. Away, too, from the shelter the alley provided. Catt pulled a face as
the keening wind, stronger now away from the protection afforded by the alley's
fencing, tried again and with a little more effect, to disturb his hairstyle.
Even though Casey was anxious to have a word with Catt in private, he was too
wary of the listening ears of the hovering cordoned-off neighbours and the even
more acute ears of the stringers who fed stories to the national press to stray
beyond the police cordon.

‘Who found
him?’ Casey asked quietly.

‘Some old
bloke out walking his dog,’ Catt told him. ‘Name of Cedric Abernethy. Eighty if
he's a day. He only lives along the way.’ Catt nodded towards the line of
terraced houses that backed on to the alley. ‘Number fifty-two. He found the
body at seven thirty. He said he always goes the back way, via the alley, when
he takes his dog for his daily walks and the body wasn't there when he set off
just before six.’ In an undertone, Catt confided, ‘And although this Mr
Abernethy is a World War Two veteran, and made in the stiff-upper-lip
tradition, I'd go easy on him. He was so shaken up by his discovery that the
uniforms first on the scene let him return home. One of them is with him now.’

Casey nodded.
‘Quite right. We don't want another death on our hands, particularly not that
of a veteran.’ Not in addition to the John Doe in the alley and the two
unofficial bodies they already had. He paused. ‘Do we know if this Mr Abernethy
touched the body at all?’

‘According to
what he told uniform, he just checked the pulse in the victim's neck, but
otherwise didn't disturb the body. He immediately got on the phone and rang
nine-nine-nine.’

Casey nodded.
‘We'd better speak to him now. Is he fit to be questioned?’

'I think so.
But if you hang on a tick, I'll send one of the girlies along to check on him.’

Casey's green
eyes showed his disapproval at this non-politically correct wording.

ThomCatt held
up his hands in admission of guilt and said, ‘Sorry, boss.’ But the tiny grin
which hovered at the corners of his mouth made a mockery of his own apology and
of the PC brigade and all its works. Catt's insincere apology was further
belied by his calling, 'Hey Annie, my darling, do me a favour?’

His non-PC
approach did not seem to Casey to have caused the young female constable offence.
On the contrary, she hurried towards Catt as if eager for more of his ‘darling’s.
But that was Tom: whatever he had that the female of the species liked, he had
it in spades as the never-ending procession of girlfriends through Catt's
bachelor flat proved. It was a talent that didn't win over Superintendent
Brown-Smith, who was PC through and through and who heartily disapproved of
Catt's easy ways.

The young
woman officer was soon back with the information that Mr Abernethy was fit to
be questioned.

Catt led the
way around the corner to the front of the row of terraces, nodded to one of the
uniformed officers outside Mr Abernethy's home and walked up the short path.
Casey followed him.

Another
uniform answered their knock and showed them into the small front sitting room
with its solid, dark furniture which made the room seem even smaller than it
was. Thickly patterned nets screened the windows and half their surface was
covered by heavy drapes which made the room even darker. The room was like a
cocoon against the modern world and Casey wondered, since he had found the
bloodied remains of their John Doe, how safe Cedric Abernethy felt now behind
its protective shell.

Mr Abernethy
sat, looking quietly composed, in a well-worn, straight-backed armchair to the
right of the meagre fire. Although certainly elderly and looking thin and
frail, he sat with a military bearing and was clearly made of sterner stuff
than he appeared.

But then,
Casey reminded himself, their witness was of that generation who knew about
hardship, be it on the battlefield or elsewhere. After quietly eliciting a few
more brief facts, Casey, having been invited to sit in the matching and equally
well-worn armchair on the opposite side of the fire, said, ‘You told the
uniformed officers that the man was dead when you found him, Mr Abernethy. Is
that correct?’

Cedric
Abernethy nodded. ‘I've seen enough dead bodies in my time to recognize when
the spirit has left.’ The old man raised thick-veined and age-spotted hands
from his knees before he let them fall again. ‘No one could lose as much blood
as that man must have — to judge by the stains on his trousers — and still
survive. He was dead all right and had been for some time, I think.’

‘Did you see
anyone else around when you found the body?’ The man's assailant, having sliced
open a main artery, was likely to be heavily blood-stained.

But, Casey
soon learned, they weren't destined to have an early suspect in the
investigation, because Mr Abernethy shook his head and told them, 'I saw no one.
Not a soul, from the time me and Timothy left home to the time I returned and
rang nine-nine-nine.’ He stroked the rough, greying head of his terrier. The
old dog gave a gruff ‘woof’, though whether this was to offer doggy comfort to
his master or to confirm his words, Casey couldn't tell.

'I wondered,
Mr Abernethy,’ Casey said tentatively, ‘whether the location of this man's
death might indicate he was local. Did you recognize him?’

Again, Cedric
Abernethy shook his head. 'I don't believe so. But I know few young people;
they have little time for an old dodderer like me. Besides, so many young men
look alike, don't they? With their heads half-scalped by the barber and with
that scruffy stubbly growth of beard that simply looks slovenly. Grow a beard
or don't grow a beard. That in-between look just appears messy and indicates a
sloppy lack of personal hygiene. Shame they've done away with National Service.
Some of today's young men could do with a sharp burst of military discipline.’

Mr Abernethy
met Casey's gaze and gave a brief smile. ‘Sorry. It's one of my hobby-horses.
But the appearance of young men these days is, I suppose, the same rule that
says all old men look the same — bald, jowly and with glasses. The same rule
seems to convince all old women that they have to perm their hair. Some sort of
generational unofficial uniform.’

Mr Abernethy —
neither bald, nor jowly, and with piercing grey eyes that wouldn't have shamed
a bird of prey — clearly hadn't either voluntarily or involuntarily adopted the
uniform of the aged male.

But, for all
his composure, he was able to tell them nothing more. After thanking him for
his help, Casey, anxious the question might be construed as an insult by the
old soldier, tentatively asked if he was okay after the shock of finding the
body or whether he would like them to contact his doctor.

‘Thank you,
no. I'm fine. Anyway, all he'll do is give me a sedative, thereby postponing
any nightmares from tonight to tomorrow. What's the point of that? Not that I'm
likely to suffer nightmares, anyway. I'm long past them now. Don't trouble
yourself, Chief Inspector. I'll be all right. I've seen a lot worse in my time.
But thank you for your concern.’

After he had
handed Mr Abernethy a card and had extracted a promise that their witness would
contact him if he recalled anything more, Casey left, with Catt at his heels.

‘There's CCTV
in the High Street and Carey Street,’ Casey commented as they returned to the
scene. ‘Worth checking to see if our victim shows up.’

Catt nodded.
‘I'll get straight on to it.’

By now,
forensic and uniform between them and doubtless having struggled against the
wind, had erected protective screening around the body. Having pronounced life
extinguished and given his preliminary findings, Dr Merriman was on the verge
of departure. He nodded a brisk goodbye to Casey and set off to the mortuary
without another word.

Since they had
left the scene to speak to Cedric Abernethy the number of gawping bystanders
had grown. But as Casey had instructed, they and the press were herded to the
far ends of the street in which the alleyway was found. Further guards were set
at both ends of the alley in case some enterprising journalist attempted to
gain an advantage over his colleagues. Such a precaution was a bit late,
though, Casey noted. Already, one or two of the more forceful of the Fourth Estate
were stationed at bedroom windows in the houses facing the alley; he could see
their cameras jutting brazenly through the wide-flung windows and recording
every movement. They must have bribed the householders to gain such a
grandstand view. Casey, imminently expecting word of his connection to the
commune killings to leak out through the sieve of careless talk, was surprised
he didn’t already feature prominently in their sensation-hungry rags.

After watching
forensic go about their painstaking routines for a few minutes, Casey said to
ThomCatt, ‘We can do nothing further here. I'll see you back at the station.
Finding our victim's identity is our first priority.’

They fought
their way through the crowds to their respective cars and drove to the station.

It didn't take
long to retrieve the CCTV tapes and get the house-to-house questioning set in
motion. But after viewing the tapes, Catt told Casey that the victim didn't
feature on any of them.

‘Must have
been brought the back way and avoided the cameras,’ he said.

Casey nodded.
‘We'll just have to hope the house-to-house teams discover something, though as
it seems he was dumped in that alleyway before most people stir out of their
houses, the possibility of getting information from such a source is likely to
be slim at best.’

Casey hated
John Doe cases. At least with an immediate identity they had something to start
from. But here, he would just have to hope the pictures of the dead man he had
instructed the photographer to forward to the media brought forth some results.

As it
happened, and though he had yet to discover this, finding out the victim's
identity turned out to be the easy part. Unfortunately, discovering who had
wanted the man dead and in such a way, looked likely to be a far more lengthy
job.

Catt perched
on the corner of Casey’s desk. He must have paid a visit to the gents' toilet
since returning to the station, because his hair was now so immaculate one
would never have thought the wind had dared to play with it. He swung his right
leg as he awaited the allotment of another job. ‘By the way,’ he said to Casey,
‘there's a woman in reception I think might interest you.’

'Oh yes?’

'I overheard
her reporting her husband missing as I came back from viewing the CCTV footage
and I hung around to earwig. Said husband sounds an awful lot like the John Doe
we found in the alley. Even down to the clothes he was wearing.’

Casey snatched
up the telephone and got through to the front office. ‘You've a woman in
reception who's reported her husband missing. Don't let her leave. I'm coming
right down.’ He asked the woman's name, replaced the receiver and hurried to
the ground floor.

Casey entered
reception and saw a tall, well-built woman at the counter. He walked towards
her. ‘Mrs Oliver?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘I'm DCI
Casey. I understand you've just reported your husband missing?’

‘That's
right.’

‘Perhaps you'd
like to come up to my office and we can talk?’

For a moment,
Mrs Oliver looked vaguely alarmed at this invitation as if she would have felt
easier talking to some junior officer. She certainly seemed surprised that an
officer of his rank should concern himself with her missing husband. Then she
gave a faint shrug and followed Casey to the keypad-controlled door that led to
the main body of the station. She waited while he keyed in the entry code. He
opened the door and held it for her to go through.