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“Trust ye not in a friend, put he not confidence in a guide.” - Micah, Verse 7 Chapter 5
When a sunny morning presents an unnamed corpse stuffed into a black carrier bag and dumped outside a local charity shop, Detective Inspector Jack Munday and his team scramble to piece together the man’s identity. The trail leads them into the excesses of London’s highly paid bankers, where a lifestyle of drugs, sex, risk-taking and flamboyant living come easily.
Doing his best to keep his messy personal life from affecting his job, Munday works to uncover the surprising past of a now-powerful cohort, whose present mission is to keep the Detective away from uncovering the uncomfortable truth behind the uncharitable murder.
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Micah Seven Five
Howard Robinson
Inspired Quill Publishing
Published by Inspired Quill: June 2014
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher has no control over, and is not responsible for, any third party websites or their contents.
Micah Seven Five © 2014 by Howard Robinson
Chief Editor: Sara-Jayne Slack
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-908600-28-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-908600-29-5
EPUB Edition
Inspired Quill Publishing, UK
Business Reg. No. 7592847
http://www.inspired-quill.com
Dedication
For Melanie, Ella & Noah… and for real friends.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Acknowledgements
First a big thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to write and to keep writing, whether from nearby or far away. I hope this book justifies your faith. Second, thank you to the team at Inspired Quill for seeing something and taking a punt on it, for their faith and their expertise in sharpening up my ragged little manuscript. I’m a big believer in independent businesses and hope this book can play its part in taking you further. And finally a big thank you to all of the people who turned this book down as it merely made me even more determined to get back up again.
Micah Seven Five
“Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide.”
Micah, Chapter 7, Verse 5
Chapter One
There are few better feelings in this world than the gradual realisation, somewhere between sleep and waking up, that you’ve got the day off.
Take that Tuesday, for example. For the previous few weeks I had worked myself into the ground and on that particular morning, the euphoria felt better than sex: the same climatic high but with none of the mess. Not that I’m an authority on that these days. Not since one, unplanned moment of madness provoked the end of my marriage. In the four months since, I had wrapped work around me like a comfort blanket; avoiding the truth, according to my friends, and suffering the consequences my mother warned me about: not eating properly, drinking too much, not getting enough sleep. Not exactly textbook traits for a policeman.
As for me, I didn’t read quite so much into it. I was run off my feet; more nose to the grindstone than head in the sand, like it must be high season for homicide. And as for sex? Probably best to gloss over it. Let’s just say I’ve been ploughing a lone furrow these past few months. I think you catch my drift.
That Tuesday, though, was going to be different. One of those stand-out days in your memory. A Kodak moment. An extra day on the end of the August Bank Holiday, quality time with my son Connor, rather than with my mobile, a bottle of Becks, and a take-away Chicken Jalfrezi for one.
I woke around eight, just long enough to drift for five more minutes before I’d have to yield to the shower and some coffee. I stretched myself out to the tip of every finger and the end of every toe and laid my head back on the cheap polyester pillow, pulling it up on either side of my face to cover my ears as the mobile started to ring. I urged it to stop, reminded it of my day off and threatened it with solitary confinement in the bedside table drawer or replacement with a ‘pay as you go’. But it continued relentlessly. I had to answer.
“Munday.”
As I spoke, I recognised for the first time the forty-a-day throat my mother had mentioned when we argued the previous evening. The voice on the other end carried the familiar Welsh lilt of Harry Duggan; my friend, colleague, and sergeant.
“Jack, I know it’s your day off, but I’ve something I know you’ll want to see.”
I propped myself up against the pillows to offset the shock of the cold, painted wall against my back, running my hand up to shake my tousled hair into life and feeling around in the half-light for my glasses.
“Uniform has a body,” Harry continued without waiting for instruction, “dumped outside a charity shop. Apparently he was found in one of the black bags left by a do-gooder over the weekend. It was only rung in a half-hour ago. I overheard the call.”
I glanced down at my watch. Ten past eight. There’s something about seeing a body where it was left, the whole look and smell of the scene that has always influenced my approach to the rest of an investigation. If I didn’t see it for myself, it was like reading a novel without starting at the first chapter. But if I went with Harry, I would be stuffed for a ten o’clock start with Connor. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t wrestle with my conscience long enough for it to be considered a fair fight.
“Pick me up in ten. I’ll call Connor from the car.”
Harry arrived as I ran a black leather belt through the last loop on my Gap chinos. I pulled the leather through the elegant gold buckle and fastened the belt tight. It had been a present from Elaine. She probably hoped I’d hang myself with it now. Harry looked contemptuously around the bedsit, using his fingertips to pick up one of a stack of many empty foil boxes. This one held the congealed remains of a Lamb Pasanda and a stubbed out Marlboro Light. He pushed an overflowing ashtray to one side and moved some empty lager cans off a worn armchair.
“I see you’re settling in,” he commented, “you know, making it nice.”
Harry, like the others, felt I had given in too meekly to Elaine and had been left in undeserved squalor. They thought she was a bitch and weren’t afraid to tell me so. But then he, like the others, didn’t know the real reason for the break-up. He held up both hands in mock apology.
“Just making conversation.”
“Well don’t,” I replied curtly, pulling on a leather jacket. “Just take me to see the stiff.”
Chapter Two
Ilowered myself into the passenger seat of the unmarked black Mondeo, ignoring the plastic ‘no smoking’ signs stuck crudely onto the leatherette fascia to light up another cigarette. I drew the first slug of nicotine deep into my lungs, and then coughed most of it back up again. The blue smoke that expelled from my nose and mouth met Harry full in the face as he positioned himself in the driver’s seat alongside me. There’s no-one so irritating as a reformed smoker. He coughed his disapproval. I ignored him.
“So who found the body?”
“One of the blue-rinsers that works in the charity shop.”
“What the hell was she doing there at eight o’clock in the morning?”
“Not everyone lives the way you do,” Harry commented.
“Even so, don’t you think it’s a bit early to be opening a charity shop? She must be very committed.”
“I know as much as you do.” Harry looked away to guide us into the flow of traffic on a busy morning roundabout. “I guess there are three types of volunteers; keen, very keen, and insomniacs. She probably comes somewhere between two and three.”
“Do we know anything about the deceased?”
“Nothing at all this early, only that it’s male. Uniform are already there and are holding onto everything pending our arrival. SOCO should be there by now and the pathologist said he’d pop by.”
I pulled my mobile from my inside jacket pocket and punched in Elaine’s number; our number until just a few weeks ago. Jason answered.
“Can I speak to my wife?”
I didn’t feel compelled to say who it was or to share with him the reason for my call. He picked up on my reticence immediately and quickly passed the handset over. Perhaps he wasn’t as stupid as I’d given him credit for. Elaine’s reaction was as I had become used to: selfish, irrational, and straight for the jugular.
“Jack, I don’t care what today’s excuse is, but if this means I’m going to have to cancel my shopping trip, I swear I’ll swing for you.”
I refused to rise to the bait and this seemed to take the wind from her sails. She calmed down, and even hinted at an apology.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I’m particularly pleased to see that the possibility of Connor missing out is your first concern.”
“So you are letting us down,” she replied, “again.”
“Calm down. I’ve never deliberately let either of you down and you know it.” I tried to speak evenly and rationally, which isn’t always easy on an unreliable mobile with a colleague sitting inches away. “I was always there for both of you. I still would be given half a chance.”
“Jack, I’m not taking a lecture from you on selfishness. You’re the past master at it. How can you ever hope to be there for us while you’re so wrapped up in yourself?”
“Is this where you give me all the clichéd crap about the job and policemen not being suited to marriage?”
“It’s nothing to do with the job,” snapped Elaine. “It would be easier for you if it was; to have something else to blame it all on. No, this is about you, Jack. It’s you and relationships that aren’t compatible.”
I reeled a little from the attack. My defence just seemed petty and half-hearted in comparison.
“Now that’s not fair. It might have been easier to make things work if you had ever stayed at home rather than swanning around with your mates as if you were still on the pull.”
“It might have been easier to make things work if you’d have kept your hands to yourself that night.”
The bitterness in her voice was palpable. I turned towards the car window and spoke quietly in an effort to prevent Harry from hearing.
“It happened once Elaine, only once. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve apologised for it. It won’t ever happen again.”
“Too right it won’t, because I won’t give you the chance. You let all of us down that night and now you’re doing it again.”
“Who said anything about letting you down today?”
“Well why else would you call?”
“I’m just going to be a bit later than I thought.”
“This is how it starts, Jack. Every bloody time, this is how it starts. I’m going to be a bit late, and then we wait and we wait, and you never show. Well, I’m sick of waiting. So how late are we talking today; an hour, two hours, Christmas?”
She sounded defeated. I found myself worrying for her as well as for Connor. I even started to feel sorry for Jason, the flat pack lover she let move in within weeks. After all, I’d felt that low myself enough times. I didn’t only have the tee-shirt and the board game, I owned the whole bloody toy shop.
“Calm down,” I tried to reason. “I’ve got to stop off at a crime scene and then Harry will bring me straight over. I promise. I should still be with you by ten-thirty. You’ll still get your shopping trip and Connor will still get his day out. No dramas, no crises, no no-shows. Do you think you can pass that onto Connor without telling him what a bastard you think I am?”
The phone clicked.
I wound down the window further, threw out the cigarette butt that had burnt down to the filter, and slipped two pieces of nicotine gum into my mouth and chewed as hard as I could to release my frustration.
“You know you’re not supposed to smoke the cigarettes and chew the gum,” Harry mentioned, breaking the silence.
“Nobody likes a smart arse,” I snapped. “Just drive.”
Chapter Three
Iwouldn’t want you to think that it was love at first sight. I’m not a great believer in eyes meeting across a crowded room being powerful enough to melt hearts. Like most people, I expect, we started out as mates. Things must have developed faster than I remember; almost as fast, on reflection, as they deteriorated.
At the time, I was still a raw recruit at Hendon, impatient to get out on the streets and make a living from what I’d been taught. I was nineteen years old and utterly invincible in my own mind. I’ll admit that lust may well have been on my agenda, but long-term commitment was certainly not. I only had eyes for my career. Elaine would tell you that I’ve suffered from similar tunnel vision ever since.
I wish I could recount an elaborately dramatic story about the circumstances in which we met, but I’d only be lying. And there’s been enough of that going on to produce another book. We first met on a warm Friday night early in June 1983. Elaine and two of her friends had positioned themselves strategically in the doorway of the back bar of the Doctor Johnson, a tired old pub close to the training college. They quietly watched three young cadets desperately trying to impress with their prowess around the pool table. The reality, of course, was that we were as far removed as you can get from Paul Newman in The Hustler. As the evening wore on and their rum and cokes went down, the girls’ silence began to be punctuated by occasional comments, which tended to produce either a knowing nod or a shared laugh from within the group.
It was some days later that I learned that we hadn’t all been completely unknown to each other. One of Elaine’s friends, Tina, and one of my mates, Mark, had previously encountered each other late on the previous Thursday when drunken fumbling after closing time had led to Tina giving Mark an impromptu blow job in an alley round the back of Hendon Central station. As I recall, they left together again that night. Like us, they also embarked on a relationship, but theirs was even more torrid than ours and certainly more short-lived. They met briefly again for what proved to be the last time when Elaine and I were married. Soon after, Mark was killed by a hit and run driver as he ran for a bus across the Finchley Road. We told Tina but she decided not to attend his funeral. Neither of us had contact with her after that.
Of the three girls, Tina was the dominant personality. Big and brassy with more jewellery than H Samuel, she did the best she could to accentuate her assets. Her fleshy body was squeezed into (and spilling out of) a deep pink vest top that was similar in colour to the uneven flashes of red across her chest and shoulders where the sun had left its mark on the previous hot, early summer days. She chewed gum with the dedication of an Olympic sportsman and periodically ran a steel afro-comb through her wiry, bleached hair. Her equally fleshy legs ran down from the bottom of a tight, white denim skirt to black patent high-heeled shoes, topped with a delicately hung gold ankle chain.
Elaine and her other friend Linda stood very much in Tina’s shadow. At that time, Tina set the tone not only for their evenings but for much of their lives as well. She dictated the where and the when, took care of all the arrangements and they, in turn, looked to her for almost every instruction. Elaine later admitted she had been taken by surprise by my interest, which, as it developed from flirtation and friendship into a relationship, seemed to anger Tina, who detected a lessening in her influence. The start of our relationship gave Elaine the opportunity that she had needed to detach herself from Tina. I watched with no little pride as she grew in confidence, began to establish her own personality, and then stand firmly on her own two feet. She was certainly making up for lost time and I enjoyed being the catalyst for it.
That particular night, though, was all about pairing off and which of us would end up with which of them. Tina clearly had the taste for Mark. She would wait until he went down on a shot before sidling up alongside him at the table, suggestively stroking the end of his cue. At first he found it off-putting, but by the second or third time, he realised there was more on offer than the game and the chance to get one over on the lads. That left my other friend, Matt, a tall, blonde-haired rugby-playing type. He had long lost interest in the game and was leaning against the doorframe where Linda stood, draining the dregs from another pint of lager. He would later make his intentions clear to everyone by returning from the gents brandishing a vending machine pack of condoms with a sly nod and a wink in Linda’s general direction. Everyone, it seemed, understood the rules. By now, Elaine stood with her back to the game, carefully studying the options open to her on the jukebox. I walked up behind her and held out a handful of coins.
“Play me something,” I suggested.
She smiled and took three pieces of silver from my palm.
“What do you like?”
“Your call. Surprise me.”
As someone who was usually swayed by The Smiths, The Jam, and Echo & The Bunnymen, “Take That Situation” by Nick Heyward probably – well, certainly – wasn’t the song I would have chosen. And it was hard to disguise the fact.
“You don’t like Haircut 100?”
“I’ve never looked good in a chunky-knit sweater.”
“So I suppose Nik Kershaw’s out of the question too?”
“And Howard Jones, and The Thompson Twins, and Wham.”
She laughed; I did too. And at that point the connection was made.
We were the last to leave the bar that night. And while Mark and Tina got it on again in an alley somewhere and Matt and Linda road-tested the vending machine condoms in the back of his Ford Cortina, Elaine and I just walked and talked. I tried to argue that “Bring On The Dancing Horses” knocked “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” into a corner, but she was having none of it. We kissed as I walked her home, but nothing more.
The rest followed in its own good time. We started to see more of each other and soon found ourselves looking for ways of meeting away from the rest of the group, during the day as well as in the evenings. Elaine showed genuine interest in what I was doing and I was only too happy to regale her with tales of life inside Hendon and paint her fanciful pictures of the glittering police career that I believed lay ahead of me. She always indulged me, not once displaying the cynicism that, on reflection, she must have been feeling. We seemed emotionally, sexually, and socially compatible and, though I had always promised myself I wouldn’t, I found myself seeing her as inextricably linked with my future.
It came as no surprise to anyone when we moved in together as soon as I graduated from Hendon. She was there to see me pass out alongside my parents and hers was the first face I looked for as I scanned the watching crowd. She told me she was proud to be there and I was equally proud to have her there.
I have asked myself since whether we then slipped inevitably but unnecessarily towards marriage and whether things would have been different if we had chosen to just continue cohabiting. I have asked myself whether the formality of marriage, the whole, serious grown-upness of it all, put us under a pressure that we could have done without. Connor’s birth was certainly a source of great excitement. I remember vividly, though, as I left the hospital in the early hours afterwards, that in some way it had changed everything. No matter how hard we might try to convince ourselves, neither of us could possibly expect to be the same people, unchanged by the experience or the expectations of parenthood. Our responsibility for this new little life simply confirmed our move into a different league.
I can’t pinpoint a precise moment when it all started to go wrong. Believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about it, expecting one particular event to hit me like a bright light as the defining moment in our relationship. It hasn’t. Maybe things don’t work like that. Certainly that night may have brought things to a head, but it was a symptom rather than the cause in the breakdown of our relationship. But when compatibility became incompatibility is still an unknown for me.
Chapter Four
Blue and white police incident tape ran from one street lamp around two others and back across the front of the St. Margaret’s Hospice ‘Nearly New’ shop, “all paperbacks only 50p”. It fluttered gently in the late summer breeze, the sun bouncing harshly off the white panels, projecting back a light that made it difficult to focus on the scene at hand. The early morning mist had already burned off. It was going to be another scorching day.
A white screen, which had been hastily erected around the front of the shop, protected the scene from prying eyes, although a small group of mainly middle-aged women continued to huddle outside the taped area and speculate eagerly among each other in hushed undertones. A uniformed constable I vaguely recognised nodded as we reached the edge of the cordon and then waved us through. Harry parked the car haphazardly at an angle out from the curb. I pulled a pair of Ray Bans out of my inside pocket, slipped them on and focused through the polarised lenses as I climbed out.
The pathologist, Dr Andrew Cook, was already at work as we manoeuvred ourselves into the confined space behind the white screens. He was balanced on his haunches, his back to us, huddled over a stack of black plastic bags, his gloved hands cradling a human head that was slumped almost lazily out of the bag nearest to him. I have known him for years and yet know nothing about him at all. He’s just one of those people that never allows you to get close. I watched in morbid fascination as he first inspected every inch of the corpse’s head, running his fingers through the hair, staring into the forced-open eyes, laying the head to one side and then the next before gently rolling the bag down to reveal the neck and the top of the naked torso. He carried out his responsibilities not only professionally and methodically but also with a relish that on occasions drove right up to the boundaries of taste and sometimes beyond. He always put it down to little more than an enthusiastic and professional pride in his work. I decided long ago to give him the benefit of the doubt, not only because I couldn’t ever muster the enthusiasm to do what he has to do in order to earn a living, but also because he’s the best in the business.
He sighed a little as he stood up and removed his cream linen jacket, reflecting the fact that he had been locked in an unnatural and uncomfortable position for too long. A large oval sweat patch cast his light blue, double-cuffed shirt into a much deeper shade across the back. He shook each leg in turn and then stretched each shoulder, when there hardly looked the room to do either. He brushed the jacket down, folded it neatly and then hung it from one of the poles that supported the white screen, before climbing awkwardly into the standard-issue white overalls to be used at a crime scene like this. It was then that he noticed me for the first time.
“Terrible business, Jack.” He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed multiplying beads of sweat away from his increasingly reddening brow.
“Aren’t they all?”
“It’ll be a while before I can tell you anything for sure.”
“Usual pack-drill,” I replied. “We’ll wait until the PM’s finished if we have to, but anything you could send us on our way with would be gratefully received.”
He nodded and smiled again. “I understand.”
The smell of heat and death didn’t mix well and as Andy Cook returned to his haunches for a closer examination of the cadaver, I saw little point in merely watching over his shoulder. I had never rated pathology as a spectator sport. I pushed the flap of the white screen aside, my eyes readjusting again to the brilliance of the sunshine. If anything it was hotter outside than under the screen, but a different kind of heat. Inside it had been moist and humid, outside it was an airless, claustrophobic heat that latched on to any part of exposed flesh and began to sear it.
I looked around. It was a pretty, quiet spot. The charity shop sat in the middle of a traditional parade: a newsagent, a small convenience store, a florist, and a sub-branch of a High Street bank. To the right, more shops followed the road as it meandered up a gentle hill; to the left it led towards leafy, affluent housing. And in front was The Green, neat and tidy, with benches beside flowerbeds for people to while the hours away by watching the world go by. I looked around and tried to lock the image away, visualising how, on a beautiful, warm, late summer’s day, someone chose a spot like this to unceremoniously dump a man’s body and leave it for others to find.
Spotting the growing huddle of onlookers, an enterprising ice cream van had stopped and opened for business on the edge of The Green, a luminous poster in the rear window advertising “ice-cold drinks” at some vastly inflated price. A young uniformed constable, barely old enough to shave, seemed about to quash the man’s entrepreneurial spirit when I pulled some coins out of my pocket to exchange for a Diet Coke. I don’t know if the constable was intimidated by my rank or just had a sudden change of heart, but seeing me hand over the money stopped him short of moving the van on and resorted instead to issuing a slightly conceited warning. I smiled and winked at the van driver as the constable turned away. He just shrugged his shoulders.
“Kids,” he said, “they think they know everything.”
“You weren’t down here yesterday were you?”
“Sorry, mate, no.” He sounded almost disappointed. “Is it a bad do?”
“It’s never a good one when we’re around.”
He pulled the cold can out of a rusting refrigerator before wiping it dry with a dirty white and orange towel.
“Rumour says there’s a body in there.”
The ice cream man filtered out change from a battered biscuit tin and laid the coins in the upturned lid to check the amount.
“Rumour’s right,” I smiled, sliding the coins into my pocket without confirming that the change was correct. “Do you do this pitch often?”
“Not as much as I used to. I try and hover around the bigger shopping areas mainly. Funny thing is, though, I did think of coming down here yesterday.”
Hilarious, I thought. But it had been worth a shot. I turned and walked back towards the crime scene, glancing to my left at the huddle behind the tape. I raised my can in a mock toast and asked if they were “enjoying the show”. Instantly, the huddle turned in on itself, like a small animal in some act of self-preservation against the threat from an external predator. Harry Duggan came up alongside me. I offered him the Diet Coke and he took a swig.
“Looks like you’re in there,” he laughed, gesturing towards the women.
“Trust me, that’s the very last thing I need.” I took the can back and gestured down towards the pavement and curb. At first I don’t think Harry really knew what I was pointing at. “You know, the body had to have been moved here by at least two people, maybe more.”
He waited for further explanation. I let another mouthful of Diet Coke travel south before continuing.
“I mean, even if he’s not a big guy, he’s still a dead weight. That makes him hard to get rid of anyway. Plus, think about it, I stick three things in my bin bags at home and they tear or split and I’m left picking crap up off the floor in my dressing gown. They just couldn’t have pulled a bag with a thirteen stone man in it from the curb to the shop, not without tearing the bottom of the bin bag on the pavement. And that would mean risking having the body splayed out on the pavement for everyone to see.”
“So he must have been carried?”
“Absolutely. Now, what sort of things do people donate in these bags?”
Harry warmed to the task. “Clothes, shirts, old records, paperbacks, that kind of thing.”
“Right, so all stuff that you can just throw into a bag, chuck into your car and then just drop off as you’re passing.”
“Guess so.”
“So, it’s not going to be often that someone would donate something so heavy that it needs at least two of them to carry it from the car. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“So when you get uniform to do their house-to-house and street interviews, let’s get them asking if anyone saw people struggling with what they thought was just an extremely generous donation.”
Harry wrote it down in his notebook, as if it were too difficult to remember without assistance.
“Another thing. Check to see if anyone along here has got security cameras and get the films for yesterday, and see if there are any speed cameras nearby and let’s have a look at the images from those.”
He nodded.
My last few words were obliterated by the over-polite coughing of the young police officer with the ice-cream vendetta.
“Sorry to disturb you, Inspector, but the pathologist has asked to have a word.”
Cook had stripped off the overalls and was rolling his shirtsleeves back down when Harry and I re-entered the screened-off area. The sweat patch on his back had expanded round to the front of his shirt, along either side of his neck and in two large swathes under each arm. He seemed oblivious to the fact. The body was still in position, its head, neck, left shoulder, and left arm exposed.
“Look, like I said earlier, there’s not too much that I can tell you until I get him back to the mortuary…”
“But?”
Cook crouched again and gestured for us to join him down by the body. The surgical gloves gave his fingers an unnaturally pale pallor. He gently moved the head away from us to expose uneven bruising around the neck.
“Well he’s naked and he’s certainly been strangled, but what with I have no idea. The marks are unusual and there’s particularly uneven bruising at the back of the neck, almost as if someone had been tying a knot.”
“How long’s he been dead?”
“Provisionally, I would say at least 24, maybe up to 48 hours, but I’ll know more later.”
“Is there any chance that he wasn’t dead when he was put in the bag, just badly beaten and left to suffocate?”
“Unlikely, but I can look into it during the post-mortem. But look at this,” he continued with excitement in his voice, holding the inside of the forearm up to the light.
“Needle marks?”
“Your man was a drug user.”
“Was he drugged before he was killed?”
Andy Cook smiled.
“You see, that’s why you’re the celebrated detective. A question that goes like a laser to the heart of the issue.” He shrugged his shoulders. “The post-mortem will tell us. I’ll call you as soon as I know.”
Chapter Five
Inside the charity shop, Marjorie Bentham was a shaking bag of nerves. Perched on the seat of an old wooden chair, the arm of a female police constable around her shoulder, she clutched tightly onto the screwed-up white tissue that she had been using to dry her eyes. She sipped carefully from a china tea-cup, biting occasionally into a solitary digestive biscuit that huddled in the saucer. From time to time, the WPC squeezed her shoulder and spoke quietly and sympathetically into her ear. She nodded silently in response to whatever was being said to her, looking up from her tea cup as she heard me approach. I leant down a little, introduced Duggan and myself, and then offered my hand, which she took into her own. She reminded me of my grandmother. Her hand trembled as I shook it and I could feel the bones standing out beneath her mottled white skin. Although at this particular moment she looked vulnerable, you could also tell that she had retained much of the beauty of her youth, her sapphire-blue eyes couched in soft, sympathetic features, her snow-white hair enhancing rather than detracting from her looks. She was just a nice old lady.
“I’m sorry Mr Munday,” she said falteringly, in apology for her distress. “I’m seventy-nine and I’ve never been in trouble with the police before.”
“And you’re not in trouble now, Mrs Bentham. Not unless you were responsible for the man’s death and I find that very hard to believe.”
The preposterousness of what I was saying was enough to secure the hint of a smile. I pulled up another wooden chair and sat myself down next to a table of neatly folded knitwear, sneaking a look at my watch as I did so, conscious of my commitment to Elaine to collect Connor by ten-thirty. It was nine-forty. I glanced around among the shelves stacked full of brass and china ornaments, down at boxes of dog-eared paperbacks and dated records and tapes, and across rails of gaudy ladies’ clothes and dummies dressed in gents clothing never intended to be worn together. It was easy to dismiss it as little more than a jumble sale, but it was more ordered and organised than that; the detected commitment and passion by the people responsible was hard not to admire. The shop clearly did good business, demonstrated by photographs and letters of thanks from the hospice that had been put into frames and left on the counter for customers to read.
The WPC introduced Norman Smith, the co-volunteer that had discovered the body with Marjorie. He nodded, shook hands, and offered me tea. He seemed calm and collected, less traumatised by the morning’s experience than his friend, though I put it down more to his generation’s belief that men shouldn’t display such signs of weakness than to anything else. He seemed urbane, serious and spoke with a quiet authority that had me put him down as probably a retired headmaster or bank manager. Even on this sultry summer morning, he was still kitted out in a navy blue blazer with a white shirt and tie, but showed none of the signs of discomfort from the heat that had characterised Andy Cook. He glanced disapprovingly at the can of Diet Coke and repeated the offer of tea. I was happy to accept.
I spoke quietly and squeezed Marjorie’s hand reassuringly. “We will need to take a proper statement from you, but in the meantime, is it okay if I just ask you some questions?”
She sniffed and nodded.
“They told me that you and Norman called the police just after eight. Is that right?”
She nodded again.
“That’s very early to be in the shop. Are you normally here that early?”
She sipped more tea and then turned her reddened eyes towards mine.
“Of course not,” she whispered. “But it was a Bank Holiday weekend. We always get more bags over a Bank Holiday weekend than at any other time. I wanted to get all the bags in and out the back before we opened the shop at nine, and Norman kindly offered to help.”
“It’s not as if we have too many other things taking up our time, Mr Munday,” called Norman Smith, walking back towards us with a cup and saucer for me and one also for Duggan. I got the sense that he would have strongly disapproved of my preference for a mug.
I placed the cup and saucer on the edge of a donated sideboard and turned back to Marjorie.
“Tell me exactly what you found when you got here this morning.”
She sipped more tea for sustenance and played nervously with the gold wedding band that now hung quite loose on her slender but bony ring finger.
“We arrived at more or less the same time and were amazed by just how many bags had been left. It was more than we would normally expect, even on a Bank Holiday. Norman said that the whole of the area must have been clearing out its wardrobes this weekend. We were actually quite excited about it. You see, these days, charity shops like ours seem to lose out to boot sales and garage sales far more than we used to. We don’t often get bags stacked up the way they were. Well, I mean, you’ve seen the pile for yourself.”
I nodded.
“But that’s a heck of a lot of bags for Norman and yourself to sort through on your own.”
Marjorie smiled, as if to say, ‘I may be old, but I’m not completely stupid’.
“Of course,” she replied. “We weren’t going to sort them out on our own, I just wanted to move them into the back of the shop.
Welcome though they are, they do make the front of the shop look a little untidy and uninviting just left where they’re put. You know, like the bin men forgot to call. We may only be a charity shop, but it’s still important for the presentation to be right.”
“And then?”
“Well, I opened up and Norman went straight through the back to put the kettle on. But we had already decided that we would get the bags in before we stopped for tea. The first two or three bags were easy, light enough for us to take one each. They’ve probably only got a few sweaters in them. Then, I went to pull down…”
She stopped for a moment, sniffed and wiped her eye. I squeezed her hand again to give her further encouragement, and when she restarted, her voice carried renewed strength and greater conviction.
“So I went to pull down the bag but I could only shift it a few inches. I called out for Norman and told him that I thought we had a bag of hardback books. That’s the only thing I could think of that would weigh so much.”
“I shouldn’t really have done it,” interjected Norman Smith, perhaps feeling a little left out of the conversation. “I’ve got a hernia.”
I looked at him and smiled, and then returned to Marjorie.
“Well, we both reached across to the top of the bag to try and bring it a little bit closer. There were a couple of other bags in the way lower down, so it was a bit of a stretch but we managed to reach it and together we gave one large pull. The bag tumbled down on top of the other two bags. I told Norman that curiosity had got the better of me and that I had to see what was in the bag. If it was something really spectacular, you see, we would have made room for it in the window and put it on display today.”
“So you opened the bag?”
She nodded, seemingly trying to go over all of the recollections in her mind before saying them out loud.
“The top of the bag was quite well tied up with some string which, I remember thinking, was unusual. Most people just tie a knot in the top of the bag. So, I fetched a pair of scissors from behind the counter and cut through the string. That’s when I first saw the…”
She dissolved into tears. The WPC returned her arm around the old lady’s shoulder and shook her very gently, in the way that you would comfort a baby. I didn’t want to push her much further, especially as she would have to recount the whole incident again when providing her formal statement. I looked up to Norman Smith, who seemed to know instinctively that I wanted him to take over where Marjorie left off.
“Without the string at the top, the bag just slumped down and the top fell open. At first all we could see was his hair, but once we opened the bag just a little, there was no doubt what was inside.”
“And that’s when you phoned the police?”
“Marjorie did. I didn’t want her standing outside looking at him. She was obviously very distressed. So I waited by the bag while she went in and made the call.”
“Okay,” I said, rising from my chair, “The WPC is going to stay with you and either DS Duggan here or one of my other colleagues will be along to take a written statement from you a little later. Obviously you won’t be able to open the shop until we tell you.”
She nodded her understanding.
“I know that it must have been a horrible shock, but there’s nothing you could have done for him.”
I didn’t know whether this would make her feel any better or not. But I felt it ought to be said. I gestured for Duggan to follow me out and we met just inside the door of the shop, when I remembered something else I needed to ask.
“Marjorie,” I called. She looked up again, looking greyer and frailer than I thought was probably normal. “Where exactly on the pile was the bag when you first saw it?”
“Just up from where it is now,” she replied, “on top of most of the others.”
Duggan waited by the door, notepad open, waiting for instructions. This was where I thought I was at my best, seeing clearly through the melee at what really needed to be done first. I glanced down at my watch. Ten past ten. I had to be quick.
“Once you’ve dropped me off, come back here and get statements taken. Then get her home and find somebody to take him home, too. I don’t want them left unattended; get the officers to make them some tea, phone their families, even their GPs if they need something for the shock. You know the type of thing, Harry, caring policemen and all that.
“Then liaise with SOCO on anything they pick up and keep tabs on how Andy Cook’s getting on with the PM. Anything at all, you call me on my mobile. Got it?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Also, when you do get back to the station, go and see the Chief Super and fill him in. Tell him I’ll go into more detail when I see him tomorrow.”
Harry closed his notebook and dug deep into his pocket for his car keys.
“One final thing,” I asked, “have you got fifty pence?”
He looked at me as if the request was completely insane, but after surveying an array of silverware in the palm of his hand, passed the coin over nonetheless. I took it with a smile, bent down, picked up a dog-eared Ed McBain novel from a cardboard box on the floor and left the silver coin on the counter-top. Harry looked at me again, though this time with a hint of disgust.
“Right,” I said breezily, “take me to get Connor now.”
Chapter Six
By the time the train pulled into Westminster underground station, the stifling heat had left my hair sodden with sweat. I must have resembled a straggler in the London Marathon as we disembarked, all arms and legs as I reached for the finishing line, looking as if I was only fit to take my final breath. I comforted myself with a quick glance around the carriage to see others dissolving in a similar state of discomfort. It was just an occupational hazard of being in London during the humidity of a particularly high summer. Connor, on the other hand, looked cool and unphased in his reversed Nike baseball cap and his Adidas tee-shirt: a walking, talking dream for marketing men around the world.
I had made it to Elaine’s by ten-thirty, albeit with only a minute or two to spare, but by ten-thirty nonetheless. So I had kept my side of the bargain, something which I took pleasure in forcing my now-estranged wife to grudgingly acknowledge. We spent an uncomfortable few minutes in the hall waiting for Connor to collect his things, me feeling like the stranger I had become in my own home, and Elaine curiously conscious of it. The new man in her life was Jason, a mid-twenties, bleached blonde fitness machine. He nodded civilly towards me as he helped himself to a drink from my fridge and a clutch of biscuits from my cupboard before retreating to the sanctuary of my dining room, leaving Elaine and me to circle each other in the hall like wounded animals.
I’ll hold my hands up now and admit that my next comment wasn’t perhaps the most tactful in the circumstances. As Connor slid his baseball cap on top of his spiked, gelled hair, he asked Elaine where Jason had gone. The fact he was interested at all made me seethe quietly with suppressed anger. When Elaine replied that he was probably playing on his Playstation, I couldn’t resist observing that this was how most kids seemed to spend their time these days. My inner sense of satisfaction at having landed the blow was quickly tempered by the venomous stare that it produced. I don’t know for sure what was stored in her mind, but if she could have spat it in my direction, she would surely have tried. It was time to go.
The journey was fine. We spent the first few stops strap-hanging until a couple of seats became available. Connor couldn’t reach the straps, of course, but held onto the rail by the doors and allowed himself to be thrown around in an exaggerated way by the movement of the train. As the carriage steadily emptied we got the chance to talk.
“How’s life?” I asked.
He looked at me, the hint of a glint in his eye, and shrugged his shoulders. The comment was as flippant as you might expect from a lad of his age.
“Still breathing, as you can see.”
“Glad to hear it. School going well?”
He nodded without looking up. I had come to realise that I was not only separated from Elaine, I was also separated from Connor. And that had made our relationship awkward in a way that it hadn’t been before.
“So what are you doing best at? Maths? Science?”
“I’m still on summer holiday, Dad. I don’t want to talk about school.”
Silence reigned for a few minutes.
“I like history,” he said a few moments later, “particularly the gruesome stuff.”
I was anxious to keep the dialogue going.
“History’s good. I also used to enjoy the gruesome stuff. It’s probably why I do what I do now.”
He nodded.
“And what about girlfriends? Any of those? Anyone special on the scene?”
Even with hindsight, I still can’t be sure whether this was a crude attempt at paternal bonding or if I genuinely thought it would bring us closer together. In the end, it just sounded crass. I don’t remember when I went from being cool Dad to embarrassing Dad, but Connor’s glance confirmed the transition. It was the same glance I remember giving to my own father twenty-five years ago. It was also a cue to change the subject.
“So, are you happy at home?”
He shrugged again. I hoped that not every answer would be as non-committal as this.
“You know what Mum’s like.” But I wasn’t sure that I did any more.
“You could always come and stay with me, if you like….?”
Connor looked up quickly but I couldn’t tell whether it was in despair or excitement. He knew instinctively, as I did, that it was a statement that hadn’t been properly thought through. It had merely seemed the right thing to say.
“…you know, you could stay for a bit?”
“Thanks Dad, but I don’t think Mum would be too keen.”
I felt slighted, even angry. I didn’t want to get the day off on the wrong foot, but I felt it was important to set a few facts straight.
“You know it’s not only up to your Mum. You have a say in this too.”
“Mum says I should be wary of you trying to use me as a bargaining chip between you.” It sounded as if he’d learnt the line by rote and then been rehearsed on it a hundred times.
“And is that what you think I’m trying to do?”
