The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (10 page)

Margie Rudd turned slowly down the hallway and led the way into a sunny back room; half-house and half-conservatory. The sun seemed incongruous somehow in a murder victim’s home but October was often the brightest month of the year. She turned towards a man that Craig hadn’t noticed, hidden as he was in a winged armchair that obscured his presence from the door.

For the first time since she’d opened the front door Margie Rudd spoke. Her accent hailed from the country somewhere and Craig guessed that her voice was normally strong, in the way a working-class voice was often loud to make itself heard in a world dominated by the rich. But today there was no strong voice, just a weak whisper that murmured her husband’s name.

“Billy, the police are here to speak to us. They want…” She paused for a moment as if unsure whether she needed to say what came next. Her frightened glance at her husband said that she was also gauging his potential rage. However the sums stacked up they fell on the side of her saying “…want to…to talk to us about Ellie.”

At the mention of his daughter’s name William Rudd lurched forward angrily. He was a thick-set man with a neck the size of his head and hands that were red and rough. They clenched into fists far too quickly and Craig understood his wife’s frightened glance. He made a note to check domestic violence calls just as Rudd sprang to his feet.

“Don’t mention that whore’s name in my house!” He waved his hand angrily towards the front door. “Look what she’s brought to my door. Peelers and news scum, digging into our lives.” He pointed a thick finger at his wife. “It’s your fault, she was your daughter. Staying out all hours of the night and dressing like a slut. It’s not a wonder someone killed her!”

Annette moved towards Margie Rudd as she shrank back against the door and Craig stepped into her husband’s line of sight. The next thing Rudd would do was raise his hand to his wife, to take out his frustration at the world. If he did they would have to nick him and he would do it happily, but it would only defer and magnify the beating she would get when he was released.

“Calm down, Mr Rudd.”

Rudd’s face reddened and spittle gathered at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you tell me to calm down, peeler. This is my house.”

Craig raised his hands in truce and Rudd pushed him out of the way, grabbing for his wife. In a second Craig had Rudd’s burly arm up his back and had pushed him to the floor.

Billy Rudd yelled at the top of his voice as his wife cowered behind Annette. “You can’t do that. This is my house!”

Craig’s normally warm voice was ice. “That doesn’t mean that you can hit your wife.”

Rudd’s voice was muffled by his position but they could still make out his words. “I’ll hit her if I want to. I own her, that’s what the bible says.”

Craig sighed despairingly and glanced at the conservatory door, calculating whether they could get Billy Rudd out the back without some canny reporter spotting them. He nodded to Annette then said the words that opened a can of worms that had probably needed opening for years.

“William Rudd, I’m arresting you…”

Annette threw across her cuffs and as Craig secured his prisoner she helped Margie Rudd to gather some overnight things. Then they walked their murder victim’s unhappily married parents through their back garden for the trip to High Street.

***

St Mary’s Hospital. 10.30 a.m.

Liam swung his legs onto the desk in the office they’d been allocated on Newman, just as Jake and Ken entered the room. Jake shoved Liam’s legs aside to make room to sit, nodding Ken to take the only free chair.

“Well, that was a waste of time. Everyone on Reilly was too busy with chess, aerobics and organising day trips to the coast, to pay any attention to what was happening here on Thursday!”

Liam nodded and smiled at the younger men. “It’s fair cheered me up.”

Ken wrinkled his brow, wondering if he should take the bait. “OK, I’ll ask. Why?”

Liam grinned broadly. “Because it tells me that there’s life after retirement. That bunch must have an average age of seventy-five but they’re still out partying every day.”

Ken laughed. “I’d hardly call chess and tea dances partying.”

“You will when you’re their age.”

“One of the old ladies said she remembers when there was no TV!”

Liam’s reply was heavy with sarcasm. “O.M.G., how
did
people survive?”

He noticed Jake studying his notebook with a perplexed look on his face.

“Penny for them, lad?”

Jake considered for a moment and then tapped on a page. “This old boy’s ninety-two and there’s hardly anything wrong with him. How is that fair?”

“Fair on who?”

Jake realised what he’d said and that they didn’t know about his grandfather yet. He shook his head. “On anyone younger who dies.”

Liam shook his head solemnly. “Ours is not to reason why, lad.” He swung his legs down and his feet hit the floor with a bang. “OK. What have we got?” He nodded Ken on.

“Right. There are twenty-two long-stay residents at the moment; they have room for up to thirty. There are six couples and ten single residents, seven women and three men. The age range is sixty to ninety-two, like Jake said. The ward also runs day sessions for any local pensioners who wish to attend.”

“Like tea dances?”

“Exactly. Sing-songs, day trips and the rest.” He turned over the page. “OK, out of twenty-two most are mobile, although there’s one who uses a wheelchair, two who use Zimmer frames and four canes.”

Liam raised a hand. “Do you know why?”

Ken nodded. “One of the Zimmer framers has nerve paralysis in her left leg and one had a hip fracture about six months ago; the frame’s part of her rehab. The cane users mostly have arthritis and the man in the wheelchair had a leg amputated from diabetes.”

Liam made a face, glad that his last blood sugar had been OK.

“OK, so that leaves us fifteen mobile and seven with limited mobility.” He turned to Jake. “How many have the upper body strength to strangle a fit young woman?”

Jake thought for a moment, tapping his pen against his teeth until it irritated Liam so much he grabbed it. “Well?”

“I’d like your opinion on that…sir.”

The ‘sir’ was said in an amused tone and Liam thought back wistfully to Jake’s early days on the team, when reverence had tinged the word every time. He was getting as cheeky as Davy.

He rephrased his question.

“Your best estimate as to how many have the upper body strength, then. Start with the ones who definitely don’t have it.”

Jake nodded. “Four of the old ladies looked as if they would blow away in the breeze. I tested the grip of the others and out of the remaining nine women only two could even squeeze my fingers hard enough to make them hurt.”

“Any chance they were faking?” Cynicism ran through Liam like graphite through a pencil.

Jake shook his head. “I got Ken to try and he agreed.”

Smith nodded.

“OK. So that gives us two women with a slightly strong grip. How strong?”

“One of them said she could tear telephone directories in half when she was young.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Was she in a circus?”

Jake shook his head. “No. She had five children and she used to wring out their nappies by hand.”

Everyone laughed and Liam gestured towards Jake’s notebook. “OK, put those two names down then, although I’m still sceptical. Ken, what about the men?”

Smith recited from memory. “There are nine men in total on Reilly and I’d say that three of them could have done it. The others are too weak.” He hesitated for a moment until Liam said “spit it out.”

“One of the three is the man in the wheelchair, so he couldn’t have done it. That only leaves two.”

Liam shook his head. He could see where Ken was coming from but he’d leave any de-selection of suspects to the boss.

“Put him down and get those five names to Davy to do background checks. I need them as well. OK, what’s happening with the CCTV?”

Jake shook his head. “There’s no CCTV inside Reilly Suite at all.”

Liam gawped. “What? How come?”

“It’s their home. You wouldn’t have cameras inside your house, would you?”

Liam blustered. “No, but I don’t live in a government building, although the way Danni runs our house you’d wonder sometimes.”

He thought for a moment. They had CCTV in the garden, street and Newman Ward but Davy already had all of those. They would tell them nothing about what went on inside Reilly, or who’d entered the linen room area between the wards. He had an idea.

“Is there a camera outside Reilly, trained on the front door? That would tell us who went in and out to the main hospital.”

Jake shrugged. “I’ll check, but remember they could have gone out by the front door and re-entered by the back, and even if they returned the same way, we’d need to prove that they’d headed towards the linen room in between.”

Liam rose to his feet, annoyed at being told his job. “Don’t be a smartass. I know fine well what we have to prove. You just gather the information and leave me to worry about the challenging stuff.”

He headed for the door at a dignified pace, completely missing the grins behind his back. Jake risked a question.

“Where are you off to?”

Liam attempted a mysterious look. “That’s for me to know and you to mind your own business about.”

***

So many uniforms. White uniforms and checked uniforms and now heavy dark ones, with stripes and chrome buckles and noisy radios on their hips, spitting out static to remind everyone they were there. Why did the world have to be so messy? People running around, disturbing this nice clean place, this haven designed to combat ageing and cure the sick.

The dead girl had been noisy too; demanding and cruel. Greedy, like everything in life belonged to her and she wanted it now and didn’t give a damn who she hurt. Too greedy; manipulating the vulnerable people that she’d met. She couldn’t be allowed to live.

***

Hazel Gormley wasn’t Liam’s idea of a nursing sister. Sisters were clean and neat, with little white hats and their hair tied back, pristine nails and small feet in soft shoes that tapped quietly as they passed the sick. The loudest sound they made was a heightened ‘Shhh’ as someone noisily passed a sleeping patient’s bed, or the accidental clink of a tea-spoon while handing a relative a cup of tea. Sisters were the mother superiors of the ward, gliding smoothly through the cloisters to ensure that all was well. Hazel Gormley was none of those things.

Liam stared at the young woman in front of him. She was young by anyone’s standards, no more than thirty-five, but if her face hadn’t betrayed her youth her style of dress definitely would have done. She wore an emerald green T-shirt that said ‘Stop me and buy one’ and jeans that Liam recognised as this years’ fashion from both Nicky and his wife. Her long, thick hair was streaked with alternate blonde and pink stripes and a small blue butterfly adorned one inner wrist. But it was her feet that bothered Liam most. They were shod in flip-flops the same colour as her top and her toenails were painted green to match.

He shook his head, unaware that disapproval was written all over his face. Hazel Gormley smiled up at him, reading his mind.

“You’d rather I was dressed like Sister Norton, wouldn’t you, Chief Inspector?”

Liam sniffed. “Not for me to say.”

“Ah, but you already have. Very loudly.” She smiled again as Liam blushed. “Don’t worry, you won’t be the first. Practically everyone over fifty has the same idea.”

Liam’s eyes widened as he blustered. “I’m not over fifty.” He was forty-nine and he was staying there till he reached his sixtieth.

The sister laughed. “Sorry. But you know what I mean. Your generation was brought up with ‘Carry on Nurse’ and you think all of us should dress like that.”

Liam pointed through her office door, indicating the residential suite. “What do they make of you, then? Half of them must remember the lady with the lamp!”

Gormley poured two cups of tea and Liam thought that at least she knew how to do that. When she replied it wasn’t the answer he’d expected to hear.

“They asked me to dress like this.” She added milk and sugar to her cup and nodded Liam to do the same. “They took a vote at the beginning against people wearing hospital uniforms. You see, this isn’t a hospital ward, Inspector. Not really. Yes, all of the people here have slight health issues, but show me someone over fifty who doesn’t have some complaint.” She glanced pointedly at him. “I saw you holding your back earlier on.”

Liam blustered again. “That’s not health, that’s my height. It’s always taken a toll on my spine.”

“Whatever it is there won’t be anyone in the world who doesn’t have something similar at your age, even if it’s only aches and pains. My residents are just as fit as you, give or take.”

“Why are they here then?”

“Because they answered an advert.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that he laughed.

“What?”