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- Herausgeber: Next Chapter
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Killing the Taxman is a thrilling sequel to ‘Dead Girl Found’ and ‘I Know It Was You,’ continuing the interlinked stories of DCI Grace Swan and Chloe Macbeth.
Grace now faces a new threat: a ruthless serial killer who also has Grace in his sights. Meanwhile, having fled to Spain, Chloe now finds herself enmeshed in the clutches of a vicious drug dealing gang, unable to find an escape before she is dragged further into their murderous schemes.
With the body count rising, Grace and Chloe both find themselves in situations of increasing menace and danger, requiring all their mental and physical resources if they are to survive.
Giles Ekins's ‘Killing the Taxman’ is a twisty, complex thriller for all fans of the genre.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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KILLING THE TAXMAN
DCI GRACE SWAN THRILLERS
BOOK 3
GILES EKINS
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Epilogue
Next in the Series
About the Author
Copyright (C) 2023 Giles Ekins
Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter
Published 2023 by Next Chapter
Edited by Tyler Colins
Cover art by Lordan June Pinote
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.
For Patricia, with my love, as always.
PROLOGUE
FOURTEEN YEARS
Fourteen years.
He had served fourteen years of a twenty-year sentence for murder and so, would soon be released from HM Prison Barwon, the high-security prison near the town of Lara, some 70 kilometres west of Melbourne.
But he would not be picking up his former life in Melbourne. He would not be seeing his ex-wife or his two daughters again, for he was no longer welcome in Australia.
Even though he had lived in Australia for most of his life, for one reason or another, he had never been granted citizenship and his visa had now been automatically cancelled for having what was deemed ‘a substantial criminal record.’
Accordingly, he was now classed as an unlawful non-citizen and under Section 501 of the Migration Act, he faced deportation back to England, a country he barely knew and had only visited twice since arriving in Australia as a two-year-old child.
As soon as his release date from prison was confirmed, he would be transported directly to the airport and put on the first available flight to Heathrow or Gatwick, or else held in a detention centre until a flight became available.
But he was not concerned. He had not spent his time idly whilst in prison.
He had carried out intensive research and now knew who he was, where he came from and more importantly, where he was going. He would of course have to play the system when he first arrived at the airport in England but that was OK. He would contact such charities as Imprisoned Abroad or Travel Care, charities who assisted British deportees arriving back from countries where they had been imprisoned. They would help him with emergency grants and assist him to find a cheap hotel or hostel, help with Benefits applications, and find a job.
Play the system. Establish an identity as a reformed citizen.
A penitent.
At least for the time being.
And then he would make his move.
ONE
WEST GARSIDE - YORKSHIRE
TEN MONTHS LATER.
NOVEMBER
‘It’s not even my fucking dog,’ Charles Manson grumbled, hisbreath misting in the cold as he walked Benedict, his mother’s spoiled brat of a spaniel through the ice-sharp winds in Shallito Woods.
‘Come on, come on. Do your business and let’s get home, for fuck’s sake,’ he swore at the dog, who persistently refused to do ‘his business’ but Charles dared not take him home without the beast having done a shit. He would only do it in the house otherwise.
The arctic wind from the north cut across the deserted woods in needle-sharp gusts into his face, a face already reddened with cold, his eyes teared by the driving icy wind. A pale sun shone weakly through the canopy of trees overhead, casting long latticed shadows that cut across the footpaths as if to obscure them. The trees were bleak as the wind whistled through the shadowy bare branches and Charles shivered as another icy blast cut through his clothing.
‘What the fuck am I doing out here, freezing my nuts off?’ he grumbled again. ‘Come on,’ he shouted at Benedict, named after Pope Benedict, but the dog took no notice and ran across to sniff at a bush before lifting his leg as a thin stream of acrid yellow urine trickled onto the ice-rimed branches. Why his mother named the beast after a Pope Charles could not imagine, considering that his mother was not even Catholic.
‘Come on, come on,’ he shouted again at the dog, who at last began to do his business, but then he ran off again to follow a rabbit or squirrel trail. Or maybe it was a fox he could smell. But who the fuck cared what it was the dog was after. Just get back here so we can get away and back to Mother’s house!
Charles did not know whom he hated the most: his mother or her fucking dog.
Charles Manson—how he hated that name (and the jokes and sneers just because he had the same name as a murderous cult leader in California)—hurried after the dog, yelling for him to come back.
At last, the beast took some notice and trotted back slowly towards Charles, who bent down to clip the lead back onto Benedict’s collar (always Benedict in full, never Benny or Ben) and as he looked up and glanced across the small clearing towards a large oak tree some forty yards away, he saw it.
With trembling fingers, he took out his mobile phone and dialled 999.
‘Police Emergency! How can I help you?’
‘Oh God,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘There’s a woman hanging from a tree in Shallito Woods!’
TWO
The Garside Gazette
NOTORIOUS ‘MANNIKIN KILLER’ FOUND GUILTY
Graham Reason Guilty of Six Murders, Sentenced to Life
Imprisonment
Graham Paul Reason, 37, of Tetney Hall, Lower Tetney, West Garside was today found guilty of the murders of six women, including his own mother and sister. Four of the victims had been completely covered in white paint, including their eyeballs, and then left naked in public spaces, displayed as human mannikins.
Reason cited defence of insanity. He was ‘ordered by his dead mother’ to commit these heinous crimes. The insanity defence was rejected by the jury and he was found guilty on all charges of murder, as well as several lesser offences including kidnapping, car theft, and the illegal disposal of human remains.
Sentencing decision: six life terms. The judge, Mr Justice Jonathon Barker, told Reason that this was a ‘whole life’ sentence and that he would never be released from prison. Reason made no comment but simply stared at a spot above the judge’s head, as he had done throughout the trial.
Speaking after the verdict, DS Terry Horton of West Garside CID stated that, ‘A truly evil man has been found guilty of the most monstrous of murders and has justly been jailed for life. The streets of West Garside are now a much safer place.’
The Gazette would remind readers that the successful investigation into the Mannikin Killings was led by DCI Grace Swan and that DS Horton had been severely wounded during the arrest of Reason and had been commended for his bravery.
THREE
The disappearance of Chloe Macbeth still puzzled Detective Chief Inspector Grace Swan.
Chloe had been on parole after serving two years of a four-year sentence for GBH but when she failed to attend a scheduled meeting with her parole officer, and it was learned that she had also left her job without notice, a recall-to-prison arrest warrant had been issued against her.
Police had been sent to her council flat in the Firth Hall estate to make the arrest but found a human body wrapped in decorator’s cloths and securely taped tight. At first, it was assumed the body must be that of Chloe Macbeth but when the cocoon was opened, it was found to contain the body of a large black male, later identified as DeWayne Radford-Mitchell, a known convicted drug dealer from the notorious Radford Boys gang in Nottingham.
Why—Grace always wondered—was a convicted drug dealer from Nottingham found dead in a council flat in the small Yorkshire town of West Garside? So far as could be established, DeWayne Radford-Mitchell had no connections or associations in the town. Known local drug dealers were questioned but they claimed they had never heard of him and had never had any dealings with the Radford Boys, who were mainly a Midlands operation.
Grace opened the file she had set up for the DeWayne Radford-Mitchell/Chloe Macbeth investigation, randomly named by the computer as Operation Pinball. Beneath the photographs of DeWayne, both in life and in death, and of Chloe, she began to read the notes she had taken at the time.
FOUR
BENIDORM, SPAIN
The Flight of Chloe McMurderess …
A blog by Chloe Macbeth, AKA Chloe McMurderess.
Shit, there was a fucking big black guy sitting on the swing seat outside my caravan and my heart began to pound furiously. Whoever the fuck he was, it was not good news, of that I was certain.
I’d started this blog or whatever you want to call it, some time ago, when I began to receive threatening letters, letters threatening me with rape or worse. I named the then anonymous sender ‘Psychoman’, which I thought was a great name and called the blog ‘The Haunting of Chloe McMurderess.’
Then, following ‘a series of unfortunate events’, I had to flee to Spain and renamed the blog ‘The Flight of Chloe McMurderess.’ I had used a stolen passport, driven a stolen car, and settled in Benidorm, thinking that I was safe living under the name of Sally Harriman, whose passport it was that I had stolen. I looked a bit like her, except I was blonde and she brunette, but some hair dye soon solved that problem. I thought I was safe. But then.
But then there was this fucking big black guy sitting on the swing seat outside my caravan in a Benidorm holiday park.
He stood up as I approached.
‘Hello Sally,’ he said in a deep resonant voice. ’Or should I say, hello Chloe?’
Jesus, shit, I near on had a heart attack! I could feel the colour draining from my face, I was hyperventilating, and my heart was pounding at a thousand fucking miles an hour. My legs turned to jelly, and I had to lean against a lamppost to hold myself up.
‘Who, who are you?’ I managed to gasp.
‘Well, I’m either your new best friend or your worst nightmare … it’s up to you, Chloe Macbeth.’
Well shit, I ran out of best friends a long time ago, so my bet was that he was going to be my worst nightmare. Whoever the fuck he was.
How in God’s Good Name did he track me down? I didn’t think he was police;, otherwise, he would simply have said, ‘Chloe Macbeth, you are under arrest for murder,’ slapped on the handcuffs, and led me away to spend the rest of my life in jail for three killings. Mind you, one of the killings was accidental, as I had acted in self-defence with no intention of killing. Thinking about it, two of the killings were in self-defence. So truly, I have only deliberately killed the once, but who is going to believe that?
Let’s face it, I fled the country using a passport stolen from Sally Harriman’s car and made my way to Benidorm in a stolen car, bought a caravan on a resort site, and got a job using Sally’s name. Hardly the actions of an innocent, were they?
True, I had killed Psychoman DeWayne Radford-Mitchell, the sender of those threatening letters but the bastard had attacked me in my own flat and had been bent on doing me some very serious harm, including rape and God knows what the fuck else. It was self-defence, no doubt about it, but since I had already killed Donald Jarrett (a vile bastard who raped me and turned my life to rat-shit) and his wife Janet, who came at me with a pair of scissors in her hand (so that was definitely self-defence) and had then framed their adopted son David, David Jarrett, for their murders, I was hardly guiltless, was I? David Jarrett later hanged himself in jail when his appeal against conviction was refused.
So, I suppose you could say I had killed him as well. Mind you, the bastard had deserved it. He had for years sexually abused both me and my best friend ever, his sister Julia, before finally raping her. Afterwards, her life had turned to rat-shit. Rape does that to a girl, you know. Breaks you inside and nothing is ever the same again. After the rape, her life in tatters, Julia had taken to drugs, eventually dying from an overdose, her death undeniably resulting from the rape—so, as I said, David Jarrett deserved it when he hanged himself.
‘Callous bitch, aren’t you?’ asked Jeremy.
Jeremy was my teddy bear, the only thing from my hateful childhood that I had left. I talked to him a lot. He was my confidante, counsellor, sounding board and friend whom I sometimes call the ‘dumb bear’ … which he didn’t like. ‘Do you, dumb bear?’
‘No!’
So, there were four deaths to be laid at my door. Which was why I called myself Chloe McMurderess when I started this blog.
So, when this big black guy, the size of a small tank, turned up outside my caravan, no wonder I flipped out. Who wouldn’t?
Because you see, Psychoman DeWayne Radford-Mitchell had been a drug dealer, a big-time dealer. I say big-time because I had poured tons of his shit, be it heroin, cocaine, whatever the fuck it was, down the drains of a back street in West Garside,
For certain, it wasn’t baby powder he’d hidden in quantity in the boot of his Audi A4 Avant. That was the car that I used to flee to Spain and which was now parked outside my caravan under a cover sheet. Thinking about it now, I should have got rid of that car as soon as I got to Benidorm, took it up into the hills and burnt it or dropped down a deep ravine. Still 20/20 hindsight and all that, eh?
So, was this guy from the same drugs gang, out to take revenge for both DeWayne’s death and the tons of missing shit? I mean, they weren’t to know it was all down a drain in West Garside, were they? I’d bet those sewer rats are still high, even after all these months, there was just so much of the fucking stuff.
Consequently, there I was on my bike, having taken a couple of days off from my job as a barmaid at Molly Malone’s, an Irish bar on Calle Gerona, and I thought about pedalling off as quickly as I could, but my legs were so jellied, I doubt I could have got very far.
Anyway, as if reading my mind, he moved very quickly for a big guy and grabbed the handlebars with a hand the size of a dinner plate.
‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea, do you?’ he said, strangely without menace in his voice, but very scary just the same.
‘Who, who are you?’ I managed to ask again.
‘I hope for your sake that I’m going to be your new best friend because the alternative, your worst nightmare, is not recommended. No, I promise you that your worst nightmare is not recommended at all. So, what’s it going to be?’
‘I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I, new best friend?’
‘No, Chloe, you don’t.’
FIVE
Grace read again thenotes about the Radford-Mitchell/Chloe Macbeth investigation that she had taken at the time.
The body of DeWayne Redford-Mitchell, DRM, a prominent member of the Nottingham Radford Boys gang was found with his throat cut in the flat of Chloe Macbeth, CM, on the Firth Hall Estate. Highly caustic oven spray had been sprayed into his eyes and throat, which would have been agonising. Why was he there? What was his connection, if any, to Chloe?
DRM is a former inmate of Full Sutton Prison, the prison where David Jarrett, DJ, took his own life. Did DRM and DJ meet in prison? A recall-to-prison warrant had been issued against DRM. David Jarrett was known to CM. What is the connection, if any, between DRM, CM and DJ?
The file also recorded the points she had written on the whiteboards during a briefing.
‘Was that all?’ Grace remembered asking the team. ‘Anybody have any suggestions or questions?’
DS Fred Burbage had said, ‘DRM was a known drug dealer. Was he using CM as a drug mule? Were they both intending to smuggle drugs, but somebody got to DRM before they could make the journey? … What I’m saying, was the car searched, either at Newhaven or Dieppe?’
‘Chloe might have been coerced, threatened if she did not obey the gangs,’ offered DC Jessica Babalola.
‘Or she might have been part of the gang all along. Who knows who she met in prison? Don’t forget that she was inside for GBH,’ insisted Burbage.
‘There has to be a good reason why DRM was in Chloe’s flat,’ added DS Terry Horton. ‘Making a drug connection does make some sense.’
‘Don’t forget that DRM had been sprayed with oven-cleaning spray,’ Grace said. ‘Why?’
‘He was double-dealing the Radford Boys and they tortured him with the spray; that stuff’s nasty and these boys don’t play nice,’ declared Fred, determined to hold onto his opinion that the affair was a drug deal gone wrong.
‘Or Chloe was being attacked and defended herself with the spray,’ responded Jessica.
‘And then slit his throat?’ scoffed Fred. ‘I think she was in deep with DRM, a bad deal went down, and the gang offed them both, and somebody else has taken Chloe’s passport to throw us off the scent. Chloe was dirty, I’m sure of it. Nothing else makes sense.’
‘I agree that nothing makes sense but I don’t believe Chloe was dirty,’ Jessica said angrily. She fervently believed that Chloe Macbeth had been badly treated by the authorities. She had been groped in a pub and reacted by glassing her assailant, and was sentenced to four years in jail whilst her attacker faced no charges. It was, she thought, an injustice.
‘OK, OK. We can kick this around all night,’ Grace interrupted. ‘The only leads we have are the transactions on the various bank cards and sightings of the Audi. Danny, please check CCTV around town; see if we can pick up the Audi either with DRM, Chloe, or another in it. Also keep an eye on bank activities.’
Shortly afterwards, Danny Moss had shown her various footage from CCTV from shops or around the town: footage of Chloe Macbeth shopping or driving the Audi belonging to DeWayne Radford-Mitchell, who was presumed to be dead by this time. Killed by Chloe, Grace wondered again. What the footage revealed did strengthen the possibility of her complicity in his death. She was seen buying the cover sheets in which his body was wrapped and purchasing a breathalyser and other legal necessities for driving in France and Spain. She was seen at various ATMs. usually in some form of disguise, withdrawing cash using Radford-Mitchell’s credit cards—using those cards to buy readily saleable jewellery and small bars of gold.
However, most telling of all was footage from the car park of the Riverside Mall. Chloe had been seen purchasing euros from a travel agency in the mall and then tracked back to the car park where the Audi was. A SEAT was parked nearby. A young woman, later identified as Sally Harriman, had returned to the car after buying euros from the same travel agency as Chloe. With her was a baby in a pushchair. She put an Aldi shopping bag on the front seat, was about to put the child into her car seat in the rear when it became obvious the child needed her nappy to be changed. Sally therefore returned to the mall, but in her haste did not properly close and lock the car doors.
Minutes later, Chloe walked over to the SEAT, quickly opened the passenger door, took out a black leather travel wallet, and returned to the Audi, and slowly drove away.
The travel wallet had contained Sally Harriman’s passport, tickets for her and her daughter for a holiday in Tenerife, €800 and £120.
‘It’s my guess,’ Danny had stated, ‘that wherever she is, Chloe is using Sally Harriman’s passport.’
‘Good work, Danny. Get this information out to Europol and request they report any sightings of anyone using Sally Harriman’s passport and to arrest them in connection with the death of DeWayne Radford-Mitchell.’
But despite this latest information, there had been no reported sightings or notifications in respect of either Chloe Macbeth, Sally Harriman, or the stolen Audi A4 Avant in any country within the EU.
Grace closed the file but was determined to keep the investigation alive; there was a death unaccounted for and the disappearance of a young woman. She would not give up on the case.
SIX
The Flight of Chloe McMurderess, continued …
I had been getting these fucking threatening lettersfrom somebody who knew who I was and what I had done. The first one I received said, ‘I know it was you, you fucking bitch’ … and all the subsequent letters followed the same theme. So, when I started calling myself Chloe McMurderess, I carried out an imaginary correspondence with an Agony Aunt, asking for advice. Her responses gave me such useful advice as:
Dear Agony Aunt, I am a double murderer on parole after release from prison for a different offence. The man I framed for those murders is out to get me and has engaged a psychopath to scare the shit out of me. I want to flee the country but have no money or means to escape. Please advise me what to do.
Yours, Chloe McMurderess.
Dear Chloe McMurderess, You’re fucked! Suggest you top yourself now before the psycho gets to you.
Best Regards, Agony Aunt.
Yeah right, that’s going to happen, topping myself. But the Agony Aunt was right, I was fucked.
Dear Chloe McMurderess, Sorry to say, but you are still fucked. Only less so.
Yours, Agony Aunt.
And:
Dear Agony Aunt, How does one get rid of the ghost of a guy you have just killed?
Dear Chloe McMurderess, I have found that holy water, monkey urine, and white vinegar can be quite efficacious but in your extreme case, I rather suspect that it may not work.
You are therefore fucked in perpetuity.
Yours, Agony Aunt.
Another gem read:
Dear Agony Aunt, Am I doing the right thing?
Dear Chloe McMurderess, No matter how much you wriggle, how much you think you have planned for all eventualities, you are still royally fucked.
Fucked big time, severely fucked, completely fucked, dangerously fucked, so go and enjoy your time in the sun. Who the fuck knows how long it is going to last … but not long, I suspect. As the now deceased Psychoman once said, ‘You can run, bitch, but you can’t hide!’
Yours, Agony Aunt.
Which was better advice than Jeremy the dumb bear ever gave me.
So, when this big black guy turned up at my doorstep, no fucking wonder I flipped out, near on shit myself.
And so did the bear.
‘Did not.’
As I said, this blog had initially been called ‘The Haunting of Chloe McMurderess’ after receiving threatening letters from scumbag DeWayne Radford-Mitchell.
After I had killed DeWayne—accidentally, whilst defending myself—I had panicked but shit! Who wouldn’t? I had to get away, both from the police and whatever scumbag drug-dealing gang he belonged to.
The stupid fucker had left a little note in his wallet with all his bank passwords and so I was able to draw out a wad of cash and buy stuff that I could sell, gold mostly. Then I ‘borrowed’ his car and fled to Benidorm, convinced that I was safe.
Even Jeremy, my best friend and counsellor, that well-worn teddy bear had thought we were safe—and he shits himself at the slightest noise.
Subsequently, when this guy turned up outside my caravan, I nearly shit myself as well.
But I digress, which is another way of saying: I’m talking bollocks. Again.
That was when I decided to change the name of this blog to, wait for it, ‘The Plight of Chloe McMurderess.’
SEVEN
Following the 999-call made by Charles Manson, the first response team on the scene had been the recently promoted Sgt Carol Tombohm, along with PC Valerie Overton. Led to the site by a still very shaken Manson, Tombohm quickly assessed the situation and immediately called for a Senior Investigating Officer from West Garside CID to attend. She then set up a taped cordon around the site, and organised a scene log, recording details of every authorised entry to the site.
As soon as Grace arrived, together with DS Terry Horton, she viewed the hanging body and then called for Crime Scene Investigation officers from Wakefield attend. Next, she consulted with the station Superintendent, Andy Claybourne, and appointed herself as the SIO with Terry as her D/SIO.
Whilst waiting for CSI, Grace and Terry stood some twenty yards from the body so as not to disturb the scene or compromise any forensic evidence which might be around the base of the grand old oak tree.
‘Doesn’t feel right to me,’ Grace said, rubbing her hands together from the fierce cold as she studied the grisly scene.
The closest entrance to the tree in Shallito Woods was about 100 yards away on Bowshaw Lane in the Marpleside district of West Garside, a small industrial town approximately 16 miles from Sheffield.
‘I mean, who carries a ladder out into the middle of these woods just so they can hang themselves? Makes no sense.’ Grace pointed to the five-step aluminium ladder lying on its side below the body. ‘I mean, why come out all the way out here in the freezing cold if you’re going to hang yourself? You’d just do it from the nearest tree, wouldn’t you?’
‘Maybe she did it out here so as not to frighten local kids playing in the woods near the road?’ Terry suggested, but without much conviction, saying it simply for the sake of something to say.
‘Yes maybe, could be, but it still doesn’t feel right, you know what I mean?’ Grace stared intently at the body, puzzled. There was something not right about it … something she could not quite figure out.
The body was hanging by the neck. From the position of the rope, the slipknot appeared to be at the back of her neck and so her head hung low, chin against her upper chest, making her face difficult to see. She wore a padded, black hooded jacket with the hood up, from which thick locks of blonde hair protruded, hanging in a fringe almost like a curtain, which the wind whipped back and forth in a frenzy.
Beneath the jacket, she wore a long ankle-length scarlet satin dress; which the wind flattened it against her thighs and lower legs as if in tease, to give a tantalising glimpse of her shapely legs. She was wearing sheer black tights or stockings through which, even from a distance, it was possible to see that her toenails were painted a bright glittery silver, as were the nails of her dangling fingers.
Terry looked around, also puzzled. ‘Shoes!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where are her shoes? She couldn’t have walked here barefoot. Her feet are clean. Look! If she’d walked here without shoes, her tights would be covered in mud and bits of twig and grass. You’re right, Grace. This does not feel right. I think she must have been carried here. She did not top herself. This is murder.’
‘Tell you something else, Terry. I think she’s a he. I think it’s a man in drag,’ Grace said, finally figuring out what it was that had puzzled her about the body.
‘Shit. I think you’re right. Look at the size of those feet. Definitely male.’ Terry thought for a moment. ‘Death of a drag queen, eh? That’d make a great title for a book or film, don’t you think? I like that. Death of a Drag Queen,’ Terry repeated, pleased with himself. Although they were deadly serious about their work, all police officers investigating murders and untimely deaths needed moments of humour to relieve the stress.
Dr Phil Bagster, the Police Surgeon, arrived and after courtesies and handshakes all round, determined that—in his opinion—the victim appeared to be male, and that in all probability was deceased. That was the extent of his duties.
‘Thanks, Doc. Would never have guessed,’ Grace said sardonically.
‘Think nothing of it, Grace. Only stating the bleeding obvious, and now I’m back to the warmth of my house,’ he said with a mischievous grin, knowing that it would be many hours before Grace, as SIO, could leave the scene.
Terry gave him the finger as he left, getting a cheery wave in response.
Terry then left to talk to Carol Tombohm and Valerie Overton, the first response team, after which he would return to CID in Concordia Court to set up a Major Incident Room—MIR—and arrange with the Office Manager for the officers that Grace requested. As part of her team, they would have to be brought into the picture and ready for the first briefing the following morning.
Grace made a call to the Coroner, who confirmed that Erika Berger, a Home-Office approved pathologist, would be appointed to carry out the post-mortem, which would be carried out in the Medico-Legal facility in Sheffield, one of the most advanced pathology units in the country.
When the team arrived from CSI, Grace was pleased to see that the Area Forensic Manager was Roger Jardine and that the CSM, Crime Scene Manager, was Rachel Compton, both of whom she had worked with on the Mannikin Killer case.
As Grace filled Jardine in on what little they knew, Rachel Compton studied the scene from a distance and then laid stepping plates, tracing out a path to the underside of the tree and the swaying body. The stepping plates were to be used for access to the scene to protect the site and avoid compromising evidence. She then began photographing the scene from every angle, making sure she trod only on the plates. The photographs would show exactly where pieces of evidence removed from the site for forensic analysis had been found. She then made a sketch of the scene, adding notes of her observations.
Next, she set up a rotating camera on a tripod; it took a series of photographs which would be digitally stitched together to provide a full 360º panoramic image of the scene. It was as close as a jury could get to a murder scene without visiting in person.
Only then could Jardine set the forensic investigation operation into full swing—with every piece of potential evidence to be collected, listed, collated, bagged, and sent for examination.
Some two dozen uniformed officers were methodically searching through the surrounding woodlands, raking through shrubs and clumps of grass; in the immediate surrounds of the hanging body, forensically-clad CSI officers, on hands and knees, made a more comprehensive fingertip search. All suspicious deaths were treated as murders until proven otherwise, not that Grace had any doubt that the death was murder.
As soon as Erika Berger, the HO Pathologist arrived, Grace donned fresh forensic clothing and accompanied Erika to the body.
‘Nothing much I can do here,’ Erika stated after her initial examination of the scene. She made a call to the Coroner to obtain permission to remove the body.
The rope was cut and the body lowered into a body bag, the noose about the victim’s neck still attached. The body was carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance and transported to the Medico-Legal Centre.
Although reluctant to disfigure a beautiful tree, Grace ordered that the branch be cut down from which the body had hung, again with the rope and knot intact. The knot could be forensically examined by an expert on knots from the Metropolitan Police in London. Even the details as to how a knot was tied could be valuable evidence. It might be possible to determine if the killer were left- or right-handed. Or the knot might prove an unusual one, tied by a sailor, for instance.
‘The Devil is in the details,’ Grace was fond of saying. ‘Details are everything; a case lives or dies on details, and every detail counts.’
At last satisfied that she had done all that she could on site, Grace bade farewell to Roger and Rachel, and wearily made her way to her office in Concordia Court.
The CID room was almost deserted. The only detective working was DS Barry Landymore, who had recently transferred from Sheffield. He was investigating a series of five robberies targeted at the elderly. The crooks worked as a pair. A man and woman would knock on the door of a vulnerable widow, display phony IDs and gain entrance, after which the woman threatened and held the victim, always female, down in a chair whilst the male ransacked the property, looking for money or valuables. Disturbingly, the cases showed an increasing level of violence towards the frail, vulnerable victims. During the last incident, 86-year-old Marjorie Frankland had suffered severe bruising to her face and her stick-like lower legs had been kicked so many times, they were almost entirely covered in bruises.
She had still not fully recovered, and started at shadows and strange noises. Too afraid to return to her house, she had gone into a nursing home.
It was a despicable crime, one that Grace wanted to work on but she had been on medical sick leave when Landymore joined West Garside CID and had been assigned to the case. Grace could hardly take the case away from him when she returned to duty but made sure she was kept up-to-date with progress reports.
Despite a considerable amount of CCTV coverage of the robbery sites, progress had been minimal, but Grace could not fault the effort that Landymore was putting into the case. She could tell that he was as angry as she about the targeting of the vulnerable elderly, and his dedication to finding and arresting the criminals was admirable.
‘How’s it going, Barry?’ she asked before heading to her office.
‘It’s frustrating, Ma’am, to be honest,’ he replied, bringing Grace up to date with his investigation. ‘We’ve got several sightings of the scum, but no identification and no fingerprints, as they always wear gloves, and their DNA trace evidence left at every site is not on file. I suspect but can’t prove that they come from the traveller site on Blackmires Road. I can’t prove it just yet. But I will, Ma’am, I will’
Grace normally asked that her officers to address her as Grace rather than the more formal ‘Ma’am’ but there was something about Landymore that held her back from inviting him to do so. It was not sly insolence or covert misogynism, but she could not fully define it, even to herself. She thought he possibly resented having a woman as the senior officer over him, even though it was now common enough within the force; in fact, several forces had a female Chief Constable.
She wondered if he might be racist. She found his insistence that the robbers came from the traveller community—without solid evidence—disturbing but whatever it was, she could not take to him and could not invite him to call her by her name.
She thanked him for his efforts, grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine on the landing, and gratefully sat down at the desk in her office. Briefly, she held her head in her hands … before realising that Landymore was staring at her through the office window. Quickly, he turned away,
As she drank her welcome cup of coffee, she made notes that she would later incorporate into the Policy File, the critical file in which every detail of the investigation and actions taken would be recorded, forming the evidential basis for any subsequent prosecution. She recorded every detail so far of the investigation: the site, timing, those present, and so forth. She would enter all this information, plus any fresh evidence discussed at the morning briefing in more detail the following day, when she had more time and was less tired.
She pulled up the pending case files on her computer, assigning the cases of lesser importance to other detectives, effectively clearing her desk to concentrate on the most important ones. She retained the case of the rape of housewife Emily Creighton, attacked in her home by what she claimed had been a teenage boy, who had knocked on her door and then threatened her with a knife, forcing his way in, and then raping her at knife point. Her husband David had not believed her and, taking their two children, had left her. Grace could not assign that case to anyone else; she felt a connection to the distraught woman but made a note to involve DC Jessica Babalola more closely in that investigation, even though Jessica would be a key member of her team investigating the Hanging Man murder.
She was so absorbed in her work that she did not hear Landymore wish her ‘goodnight’ and was surprised when she looked around to find she was totally on her own. Time to head off as well she decided, shutting down her laptop. She made her way downstairs, waved goodbye to the duty officer, and walked across the car park to her red, beloved Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.
When Grace arrived home, she clicked the garage door remote and drove into the garage on the ground floor of her three-storey townhouse on Cotton Mill Street on Redemption Island, where she lived with Terry Horton. As she got out of the car, she felt a shiver down her back, the same premonition she had sensed during the Mannikin Killer investigation.
She was being watched, she was certain of it and quickly clicked the remote to close the garage door. She did not move util she was certain that it had fully closed and then ran upstairs to the roof terrace and studied the street scene outside the house, but she could see nothing untoward.
Somebody just walked over my grave, she told herself, but she knew it was more than that. DCI Grace Swan was not paranoid, did not spook easily, but she felt distinctly spooked that night.
She vowed not to tell Terry about the experience; he would only fret and worry, call for extra security, have patrol cars drive by every hour, and smother her with concern. But she could ensure that, whenever possible, she did not drive home late at night on her own. She looked in on Terry. He was fast asleep in their bed and she made sure she did not to disturb him as she quickly undressed and headed for the shower.
They had been in a relationship for several months now, initially pretending that they were just good friends but fooling nobody, and at the height of the Mannikin Killing investigation, when she had been under direct threat from the killer, Terry had finally moved in with her, even though he retained his own flat nearby.
The hours spent in Shallito Woods and the sensation she had felt in the garage had chilled her to the bone and she stayed under the steaming hot water as long as she could, letting it gently ease the tension from her neck and back. She had not eaten all day but did not feel hungry; her mind was still awhirl with the details of the hanging-man investigation.
If truth be known, she had not yet fully recovered her appetite following an operation to remove a large benign brain tumour. She had suffered fierce headaches for weeks, eventually collapsing in her office, and had still not fully recovered her strength. She tired easily and the strains of the day had left her exhausted and with a low-grade headache. Before she put on her pyjamas, Grace studied herself in the full-length mirror fastened to the back of the bathroom door.
Despite a far distant African heritage, two hundred years or more ago, when a white Kenyan hunter had married a Maasai girl, she was still deathly pale. She had lost weight—weight loss that accentuated her high cheekbones and gave her a gaunt, almost skeletal appearance.
My tits have shrunk, she told herself. and they were never that big to start with. And my hip bones stick right out. God, I look like something out of Belsen. At least my legs are still long; my calves and thighs are still shapely. She’d always considered her legs to be her best features and, without a hint of vanity, believed she had the legs of catwalk model. ‘At least my belly’s a bit flatter,’ she said to herself, patting it gently. ‘Which is something, I suppose. And my eyes are still blue.’ Grace did have startlingly blue eyes, but they were sore and irritated after her long day and she had no eye drops left, had been meaning to buy some for days but never got round to it.
‘You feel like shit and you look like shit, don’t you? And you shouldn’t really have gone back to work as soon as you did, but you just couldn’t keep away, could you, girl?’ she chided herself softly.
She had resumed shortened hours just over a week ago but those days of shortened hours were now a thing of the past she thought as she slipped into her pyjamas and slid into bed beside Terry. She snuggled close to him as he snored gently, his back to her, and she wished that he would turn around, just to give her a good night kiss, nothing else. Well, maybe something else.
She reflected that Terry had not made love to her for some time. The last time must have been sometime during the Mannikin Killer investigation, when he had first moved in with her. But since then, he had been wounded, stabbed in the stomach by the killer, Graham Reason, and had suffered life-threatening internal bleeding, and she had undergone brain tumour surgery, so they had simply got out of the habit of making love. ‘Have to do something about that,’ Grace thought, but then wondered why he would want to make love to a bag of scrawny bones as she slipped a hand into her pyjama bottoms and between those shapely thighs.
When Terry had been stabbed, Grace had held him, trying to staunch the flood of blood from his wound, unmindful of her own wound, a deep slash to her upper arm, her blood trickling through a rough bandage to mingle with Terry’s.
He’d opened his eyes, his face pallid, the colour of old dough. ‘Love you, Grace Swan,’ he had muttered. ‘Marry me, Grace Swan, please marry me.’
‘Yes, Terry, my darling love, yes,’ she had answered.
Since then, however, nothing had been done. She had then undergone the brain surgery and only just returned to work, so no date had been set, no preparations made, no announcements to friends and colleagues, but they both knew it would happen sooner or later; for now, they were content, solid in their relationship.
When she awoke, Terry had already left. He would be setting up the MIR for the morning briefing. It was something that he took very seriously, determined that when Grace entered the room, everything she needed would be in place.
She showered and dressed in one of her favourite outfits, one she always wore on the first day of an investigation: a dark grey Hobbs trouser suit, white blouse buttoned to the throat, and black patent shoes with a kitten heel. Makeup, a dab of lip gloss and a touch of eye shadow, and a squirt of Jo Malone perfume completed the ensemble. She liked it; it wasn’t power-dressing but gave her a sense of authority. She picked up her black Furla handbag, and made her way down to the garage, got into the Alfa, and drove to the West Garside CID HQ in Concordia Court.
EIGHT
The Plight of Chloe McMurderess, continued …
‘Chloe, we need to talk,’ my new best friend, or the NBF as I now called him, said. I just hoped that he also turns out to be a BFG—Big Friendly Giant—, because he was so huge.
‘Yeah, I rather think we do, but best you continue to call me Sally around here. That’s how I’m known and these caravans have paper-thin walls and the residents have big ears. I don’t really need for anybody to hear you call me Chloe again.’
‘No problem with that, Sally,’ he answered, laying heavy stress on the Sally. ‘We’ll take a little drive out into the country … nobody can hear us then,’
A little drive out into the country. What the fuck did that mean? A one-way ticket to nowhere? Was he going to take me somewhere quiet and feed me to the fishes, or whatever the current gangland metaphor for offing somebody is these days?
And what did ‘nobody can hear us’ mean? Hear what? My screams?
He saw the look on my face.
‘No, no, don’t worry. No harm will come to you, I promise … provided of course that I remain as your new best friend.’ It was said with a smile but even a great white shark could have a smile on his face as he chews you to ribbons. The guy was scary without being in any way threatening, if that made any sense.
‘What do I call you?’ I asked. ‘Can’t hardly carry on calling you “New Best Friend” forever, can I?’
‘Let’s just leave it at that for the moment, shall we? Until we get to know each other a little bit better,’ he answered, gently taking my elbow. ‘Leave your bike here and we’ll go to my car. It’s parked in the visitor spaces.’
I did as I was told. I guessed I’d better get used to doing as I was told. I wondered if that would involve dropping my knickers because scary as he was, there was something incredibly attractive about him. And I had not been laid in a long time.
He was, as I said, as big as a small tank, tall, broad-shouldered with a tight waist and bum, well dressed without being flashy in the way that DeWayne had been; he had sported a heavy gold necklace the size of a child’s bicycle tyre and garish rings on his fingers. Everything about him had screamed pimp or drug dealer.
NBF was classily understated; he wore a short-sleeved cream cotton open-necked shirt, a light grey padded jacket, pale blue slacks, simple brown leather belt, and brown loafers without socks. His hair was cropped short, eschewing the hard-man shaved head look of DeWayne. He looked more like a corporate lawyer than a gangland member, but I had no doubt that that was what he was, just higher up the tree. No rings or jewellery apart from a wedding band, a plain watch on a brown strap;, I couldn’t see the make but I could see that like everything else about him, it was understated class.
I could readily see that he might just get my juices flowing.
He led me to his car, a shiny black Audi A5.
What was it about Audis with these drug gang fuckers? DeWayne with his A4 Avant? And now, NBF with this A5? Why not buy British? What was wrong with a nice Ford Focus or a Vauxhall Astra/? Or a Mini?
‘Don’t bother answering that.’
He opened the passenger door and ushered me inside. The perfect gentleman.
NINE
The Garside Gazette
BODY FOUND HANGING IN SHALLITO WOODS
Man Discovers Body Whilst Walking His Dog
46-year-old Charles Manson was walking his dog in Shallito Woods when he came across the grisly sight. ‘Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you.’
Police have not yet identified the body but an unconfirmed report indicates that the victim was a male dressed in women’s clothing. When contacted by the Gazette, DCI Grace Swan gave no comment, stating that the matter was still under investigation and that details would be released ‘when appropriate’ …
