Reprobates (11 page)

Dylan sat quietly soaking up the information they had about Kirsty Gallagher at the debrief. His officers had been proactive.

Detective Sergeant Robinson outlined the day’s findings to the gathered team members. The group were tired. The Incident Room was crowded. The aroma of perspiration hung in the air like a heavy oppressive cloud.

‘
We now know that Ms Gallagher had quite a few little jobs. Her main income was one from secretarial work. She temped a lot, working occasionally at Fernlee Middle School, Murfield Post Office, Prestigious Funeral Directors. Neighbours we have spoken to say she was a pleasant individual. Known locally for her tattoos.’ Paul showed the picture that had been found behind her car’s sun visor. Even with his head down, Dylan could tell by the sound of paper rustling that copies were being handed around.

‘
Her doctor says he hasn’t seen her for six months. Back then she was prescribed a course of diazepam, for short-term relief of anxiety. But she wasn’t on any long-term medication. We have gathered a lot of data from the house that needs examining in detail. Her telephone provider has been established and urgent enquiries are being made of them. You all have your own enquiries to be getting on with, but the next action is waiting for you to look at. Isn’t that right Lisa?’

Lisa nodded her
head at the pile of paperwork with references to enquiries to be made that sat on her desk. Anyone of those actions could be their next big lead.

‘
Someone has had time to plan and prepare, I feel sure. Did Kirsty put the photograph in her car or did someone else to try to mislead us? Let’s keep digging, keep your mind open and remember there isn’t such a thing as a perfect murder,’ said Dylan.

‘
What I can’t understand is, if someone she knew was intent on getting rid of her, then why didn’t he or she remove her body from her home address instead of waiting for it to be taken to the mortuary where they’d have to break in to steal it?’ asked Andy.

‘
Maybe it was their intention but she was discovered by us, before they had time to move her,’ said Paul.

‘
Bet they panicked when they discovered she’d been taken to the mortuary? There was definitely no sign of anyone else at her house when we were there the night her body was discovered,’ said Ned.

‘
We need answers to these questions and more... Tomorrow’s another day, as they say. Thank you everyone. Go home and sleep well. See you back here tomorrow morning nice and early,’ said Dylan.

The briefing over, Dylan returned to his office and prepared to leave. Briefcase in his hand he had just turned out the light and was about to shut his door. The outer office was empty. His phone rang. For a moment he stood and looked at it. Its persistence however made him go back and pick it up.

‘Dylan,’ he said brusquely.

‘
Inspector, Brian Fisher.’

‘
Mr Fisher, what can I do for you?’

‘I
’ve taken the opportunity to speak to Derek Harper further.’

‘And?
’

‘
And having done so, I have advised him about his conduct and given him a written warning, which I think will do the trick.’

‘
I certainly hope so and I also hope you don’t have cause to regret your leniency,’ said Dylan. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’

Dylan made a mental note to tell his officers to be aware of Mr Harper
’s attitude and to report back any impropriety in the future.

He was out the door before his telephone could ring again.

Max was at the forefront of his mind…

‘
The news is good. Twenty-four hours and Max can come home all being well,’ said Jen.

‘
Help! Please help me.’ Were the first desperate words that Control Room operator Richard Pauley heard from a hysterical female when he answered the 999 call. He was well aware it was pitch black outside. Time was no more than a casual significance to the staff, working in the windowless room.

‘
Try to stay calm. Could you give me your name, address and postcode? Then, I can get help on its way to you.’

‘
Jane Simpson, 14, Danone Way. HD5 OER’

‘
Jane, how old are you?’

‘
Thirty-eight. Please,’ she gasped, ‘tell them to be quick. He might be still here,’ she whispered.

‘
Jane, help is already arranged and on it’s way, you are not delaying anything by talking to me now. You should hear their sirens very soon. Can you tell me what’s happened?’

‘I
’ve been attacked... in my house... I’m scared,’ she said.

‘
Where are you at the moment?’

‘
In my kitchen, on the floor. I daren’t move.’

‘
And who do you think might be there Jane?’

‘
The old man. He went into the hallway after I stabbed him. He was trying to strangle me. Please hurry.’ Jane’s voice was trembling uncontrollably.

Richard knew she was in shock. He could hear her teeth chattering.

‘Listen to me, concentrate on what I’m saying. The police and ambulance should be with you any minute.’

Her breathing was fast and shallow.

‘Jane, take some deep breaths for me. Jane. Keep talking to me...’

‘My legs. I can
’t move.’ She whimpered.

The high Georgian window in the kitchen expressed a ray of light, the reflection from the security light.

‘I’m going to die.’

‘You
’re not going to die, Jane. Listen to me. Can you see into the hallway?’

‘
No, it’s too dark,’ she said.

‘
Can you hear anything?’

‘No!
’

‘
Jane, you’re doing really well. Are you hurt?’

‘
I can taste blood,’ she said. She raised her fingers to her mouth and touched her swollen lip. ‘I think I cut my hand on the knife. My head hurts. He pulled my hair.’

‘
Jane, like I said you’re doing really, really well. Keep talking. The police and the ambulance crew should be with you imminently. Were you alone in the house?’

‘Yes. I don
’t feel well,’ she said. Richard could hear a definite slur in her voice.

‘
Can you hear the sirens?’

‘Yes!
’ her voiced raised. ‘Thank God,’ she said. Jane’s breathing was laboured and her voice started to ebb away.

Jane was sprawled out on the floor, listening to her heart beating hard and fast.

‘Jane! Whatever you do, don’t hang up; keep talking to me,’ Richard said with a vein of urgency in his voice. ‘Without going into the hallway is there an open door or one that needs unlocking to allow us entry?’

‘I
’ll open the back door. I’m shaking so much...’ she said. Richard Pauley could hear Jane moving towards the door. ‘They’re here,’ she said. She stood at the open door where she fell into the arms of Police Constable Gavin Druce. He took the telephone from her hand.

The first paramedic on the scene ran in close behind PC Druce and took her limp body from the officer. Jane Simpson allowed herself to be shepherded to a chair.

‘Control, PC Druce. We’ll take over now. Paramedics are on site. I’ll update you once we know what’s happened and have searched the house.’

‘
Thanks for that,’ said Richard Pauley.

‘
Householder is in shock, no life threatening injuries. Search now commenced.’

Gavin Druce and PC Fiaz Hand prepared themselves, batons drawn, they were in control of the situation. No verbal communication was necessary between the pair as with trepidation they walked carefully towards the door to the hallway. The motionless body of a man lay spreadeagled, face down on the hallway floor. PC Druce dropped to his knees at his side and shouted to the paramedics to attend to the man. Standing, he proceeded to open the lounge door, peering around the room for further occupants. PC Hand headed up the open staircase in quick time.

The felled man was wearing a full head mask of an old man with grey wispy hair and a large crooked nose. A mask that the officer knew was readily available at the supermarket. At the left hand side of the body Gavin noticed a large black handled carving knife, which on closer visual examination appeared to be heavily bloodstained. There were two visible stab wounds in the middle of the victim’s shoulder blades and his light coloured shirt was saturated in arterial blood.

Checking his pulse the woman paramedic looked up at PC Druce. Her lips were pressed to a pale hardness. Fleetingly she closed her eyes and shook her head.

PC Hand having completed the search on the upper floor was on his way down the stairs. He shook his head at his colleague and PC Druce knew there was no one else present in the house. Consciously they disturbed nothing else at the scene.

The male paramedic was talking calmly and reassuringly to Jane, as the woman paramedic prepared her to be moved to the ambulance. She wrapped a thin blue blanket around Jane and tightened the strap on the wheelchair so she didn
’t fall. Jane sat very still, staring ahead. The male paramedic noted her tremulous limbs and looked at his colleague. The door to the hallway was open slightly and as the paramedic pushed her past the entrance she saw the body laid out on the floor. She turned her head away and screamed hysterically into her hands. Only when they got outside the door and stopped did she appear conscious of faces looking down at her. The faces of the paramedics who proceeded to try and calm her.

‘
PC Druce to Control, we have a murder scene. We have a male pronounced dead by the paramedics in the hallway of the house. It appears he has suffered stab wounds. Could you send further assistance to secure and preserve the scene and will you inform on-duty CID?’

He knew that the detectives on arrival would take charge of the crime scene.

Jane Simpson would soon be on her way to Harrowfield Hospital for her injuries to be treated but since she was responsible for a person’s death it was only a matter of time before she would have to be arrested. It was decided that PC Druce would travel with her for continuity. When she rang in on the three nines she had told Richard Pauley that she had stabbed the intruder – he was dead.

‘I
’ll need a duty statement from you,’ PC Druce told the paramedics. ‘And CID will need to speak to you later. I’ll also need Ms Simpson’s clothing for exhibit purposes.’

It was essential that they took samples from her with her consent, but before she was cleaned up they needed to secure any contact evidence that there might be. PC Druce turned to her,
‘When you rang nine, nine, nine you told them you stabbed the intruder?’ He cautioned her.

‘Yes,
’ she said, breathlessly. Her eyes had a vagueness about them. ‘I don’t understand.’ She looked confused and dishevelled.

‘
The intruder is dead apparently from stab wounds, so therefore I am arresting you on suspicion of murder,’ he said to her.

‘I
’m not a murderer,’ she said turning her head quickly from side to side. Her eyes looked wild and full of anger. ‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ she said, over and over again. ‘He was going to kill me... I had to stop him.’ There was blood on her lip and a little on her chin.

The male paramedic and PC Druce exchanged glances over the woman
’s head. She was a rather anaemic woman, the paramedic thought seeing her lying on the bed in the ambulance. PC Gavin Druce sat opposite her on a chair and buckled his seatbelt. The ambulance doors were closed.

Vicky Hardacre was the on-duty CID supervision. Although she had passed her exams for the rank of Sergeant, she had to await the next round of promotion boards before being considered substantive, which meant in the meantime Detective Inspector Jack Dylan could request her to be in his team as an acting Detective Sergeant, and headquarters had approved the request. This incident meant she would now get her first taste of what the additional pressures and stresses were that came with that role. It was her first opportunity to prove to everyone she was competent.

Acting Detective Sergeant Hardacre felt very alone. She arrived at the scene with Detective Constable Wormald. Whilst she had attended murder scenes on numerous occasions, this was different. She was the most senior police officer at this scene and she was aware that others would look to her for direction. She was now the one responsible for making decisions and she had to record why she’d made them. Afterwards people would judge her on how she dealt with the issues that arose here and now and the judgement calls she made on the spur of the moment. That was afterwards, in their nice cosy offices where there was no hurry about their task. Her first job as supervision was a murder. It couldn’t get more serious. She was in no doubt that she was under the microscope.

‘
Guess it’s sink or bloody swim, Andy,’ she said as they got out of the unmarked vehicle. Her heart was pounding and not used to feeling hurried she felt the immediate rush of adrenalin.

‘
Sarge,’ Andy Wormald said respectfully.

PC Hand updated them both with a sallow and expressionless face. Vicky was aware of his eyes fixed upon her. In her entire career no one had spoken so directly to her, or so it seemed. They
’d talked at her, over her, through her, around her but never in a way he did now that she was the most senior rank at the incident. It felt strange.

‘
PC Druce is on route to the hospital in the ambulance with Jane Simpson, Sarge,’ he said. ‘Her injuries are minor. What we have been able to establish so far is that she says she disturbed an intruder who attacked her and she was in fear for her life. It appears she pulled a weapon out of the knife block, on the kitchen work surface and stabbed him more than once. There are two stab wounds to his back but we haven’t moved him, so I can’t tell you if he has any other injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene by the paramedics who came to attend to Ms Simpson. I’ve got uniform commencing a log of attendees and taping off the immediate area.’

‘
Anyone asked for the D.I. to be called out yet?’ asked Vicky.

‘
No, that’s your shout Sarge.’

Vicky
’s lip curled up at the corner.

DC Wormald was busy giving their names and collar numbers to Police Constable Tracy Petterson who was now collating attendees at the scene. A necessary documentation to record persons present at various times at a crime scene.

Blue lights announced the arrival of the on-duty uniform Inspector, Justin Gaskin. He screeched his car to a halt and unfolded his large frame from the vehicle before swaggering over to the pair. ‘Sounds like one evil burgling bastard met his match to me,’ he said in his bombastic manner. ‘Been inside yet? Let’s have a little looksy shall we?’

‘
No, you won’t have a looksy. You know the score. Andy and I will be the only people entering the crime scene – this is CID’s responsibility and I’m in charge,’ said Vicky who stood her ground in front of him.

His bulging green eyes leered at her from under bushy, red eyebrows. She quivered inside.
‘Come on, we need to know what we are dealing with, nobody needs to know, kid.’ His giant frame over-shadowed her.

‘
Yes they will, because it will be on record and another thing, I don’t think Dylan will take kindly to someone contaminating a crime scene just to be nosey, do you?’

Justin Gaskin was a egoist. Standing six feet and seven inches tall to Vicky
’s five foot ten he looked down on her and she looked up at him with a steely glare.

‘
Okay, if that’s how you want to play it act...ing Sergeant Hardacre,’ he said with a snarl.

‘
With due respect, sir, it’s a murder scene. It’s my call as the senior detective and we don’t play at it.’

‘
She needs a strong man like me to control her,’ he said to DC Wormald out of the corner of his mouth. Andy looked at him with the contempt his words deserved.

Vicky was right. Gaskin knew it, and although he outranked her, she was the on-duty senior detective in charge. Vicky had the expertise and responsibility for the crime. Without awaiting a response from him she asked control to call out DI Dylan to meet her at the scene and arranged for the crime scene investigator to attend, along with their scene supervisor.

Inspector Gaskin stared at her through his designer glasses, and although his face was the colour of his hair he remained outside the taped area.

Vicky stood with Andy.
‘It is rumoured Avril Summerfield-Preston was one of his conquests,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth.

‘
Not so bright then is he?’ asked Andy.