Death and Deception (2 page)

‘It’s OK, Ma’am, Sally Ellis has sent over the details already, and I know the way to St Andrew’s.’

What he really wanted to know was where he stood in relation to Ian Gould, but he couldn’t think of a way to phrase it without sounding whiny.
      
‘Ma’am?’

‘What?’

Here goes nothing, he thought,

‘Is DCI Gould leading? Because I thought the next major case was mine, but if he’s already at the scene…’ he drifted to a halt. Whiney, definitely.

‘Oh, got you. No, Inspector, that’s the whole point of me getting you in on your day off and bringing you up-to-date. This will be your first lead.’

His heart did a sideways lurch. Leading the case, and with a possible murder to solve. Christmas!

‘But before you get all gushy and start imagining your face on the evening news,’ she continued, ‘DCI Gould will be with you all the way. Acting as your senior support and sharing the load. Especially as the silly pillock has messed up the rosters in your unit and let two Sergeants and a DC go on leave in the same week.’

Right, so he was ‘in charge’ but he’d have Gould breathing down his neck the whole time. Great.

‘I have got Sergeant Ellis, Ma’am, and a couple of good lower ranks. With all due respect, I don’t think I need to be supervised. Except by you, of course.’

He stumbled to a halt and listened to the change in her breathing, and the speed of her pen tapping.

‘With all ‘due respect’, Inspector, this is DCI Gould’s last shout before he retires. You’ll work with him and enable him to slope off in three weeks feeling good about himself, or I’ll make your life such a misery you’ll be begging for yet another transfer and your fledgling career will go right down the toilet. Is that enough ‘respect’ for you?’

Dan sank onto the bed, face burning.

‘Yes, Ma’am. Sorry. Just wondering.’

‘I’ll bet you were.’ Her tone changed. Back to business. ‘Everything you do comes straight to me, Inspector, no keeping stuff to yourself and giving me nasty surprises. Let’s keep this one clean and tidy. Right, I think that’s all for now, you know the ropes. Off you pop, then. Back here for five o’clock briefing.’ She didn’t say goodbye.

Dan stared at the phone for a second. Tough but fair, they said at the Station. Well, tough, for sure.

He pulled the bed away from the wall and located his shoe. The toast cooled to inedible leathery cardboard as he slammed the front door behind him.

Date: Monday 24th April
Time: 10:07
St Andrew’s Academy, Exeter

By 10.07 a.m., DCI Ian Gould was resting his bulk against the Reception desk at St Andrew’s Academy, chatting to the Receptionist. He sighed when he heard the siren blasting away as Hellier arrived with a scream of tires into the car park.

Dan switched off the siren, jumped out of his Audi and surveyed the school. On the eastern edge of the city outskirts, five miles from the centre, this was practically a country school. Low rise and low key at the entrance, he could see evidence of new building further on the site. He thought it probably took its catchment from a mix of farms, the large estates at Whipton and the villages of East Devon. Almost a thousand students, and over a hundred staff, Sally had said, a successful school. This could be a mess. He corrected himself, the death of a child was always a mess, wherever it occurred. He locked the car door and made his way into the Reception area.

‘Alright?’ Gould said, eyeing Dan’s damp hair and red face.

‘Cycling,’ Dan replied. He signed in and smiled at the Receptionist as she let them through the double doors into the corridor.

Gould pursed his lips. ‘The boss says you’re leading on this case. You know I’m retiring in a few weeks?’

Dan glanced across at him, unable to gauge the DCI’s mood.

‘Yeah, that’s what she said.’

Gould stopped in the mid-lesson quiet of the corridor and regarded his hands. ‘I know you all think I’m past it and it’s time I was put out to grass. Maybe I am. But you will show me respect on this case, DI Hellier. I am still your senior officer.’ He stared Dan down. ‘And you, you’re just a smart-arsed kid up from London, really, aren’t you? Got it all to prove.’ He placed his forefinger in the centre of Dan’s chest. ‘Everything you do goes through me.’ Jab. ‘No sneaking to the boss behind my back.’ Jab. ‘We’re a team.’ Jab. ‘OK?’

Dan swallowed the flash of heat that being poked in the chest by the old bastard had ignited. He wanted this job.

‘Got it, sir,’ he said in as neutral a tone as he could manage.

Gould studied him. ‘Right. So don’t cock up.’ He offered half a smile. ‘You’d better follow me then. The crime scene’s a quarter-hour walk away.’

Dan followed him through the building and out onto the play area.

He’d recovered a little since the earlier phone call with Superintendent Oliver. Once it became clear that he would be working with Gould whatever he felt about it, he’d backed down swiftly. The alternative was a transfer - another transfer, he corrected himself. Oliver had also told him that everything he did had to go through her. What was it they said about a man serving two masters? He sighed, his earlier excitement at leading the case waning into resignation. He was the newbie, with everything to prove, no matter what he had achieved in London.

Gould tramped along for a few moments, grumbling. He hurried to match Dan’s stride, puffing and wheezing.

‘I don’t suppose anyone would care if I did end up with a heart attack.’ In the distance, they could see black and yellow tape and two figures in uniform at the far end of the large playing field.

‘Probably should have shut the school.’

‘Yeah, it’s happening. Buses will be arriving back from their depots within the hour. Teachers are doing lessons as normal and will send the classes out one at a time. Better control that way. The Head teacher would prefer it to stay open, of course.’

PC Lizzie Singh came down the field to meet them. She gave her report as they walked towards the wood.

By 8.44 a.m., after the phone call had come in from the school, Lizzie had been first on the scene. (
Author’s own words):
Disregarding the trouble they might be in, the boys had legged it back to the school as fast as they could to report their horrific find. The eldest, Ryan Carr, had led Lizzie back to the body.

‘I knew Carly, sir,’ she said to Hellier. ‘I identified the body. She was a member of our Youth Matters group. She won ‘Exeter’s Got Talent’ at Christmas.’

Dan glanced at her. ‘What’s that? Local talent show?’

Singh snorted. ‘Bit more than that. The winner gets a recording session and the last two have gone on to get a contract. It’s quite well-thought of in the music industry.’

‘So she was that good?’

‘Yes, she was a good kid all round, really. Bit loud, bit opinionated, but a fantastic singer.’ She grimaced, close to tears. ‘It’s so sad, a young girl dead when she had so much to live for.’ She sniffed and blew her nose on a tissue.

‘ Sorry. I’ve asked the school nurse to sit with Jenna until her Dad comes to collect her. He’s a builder so he’s got to get back from Newton Abbot.’

‘Does she know what’s happened?’ asked Dan.

‘No, only that we have news about her sister, and she’s to wait until her father arrives.’

‘Right, good move, PC Singh,’ said Dan. ‘Could you ask Mr Braithwaite to drive Jenna home and tell him we’ll be round to talk to them as soon as possible?’

‘Yes, sir, of course.’

Lizzie led them over a broken barbed wire fence towards a clearing where the Forensics team had set up shop.

‘It’s not great in the woods, sir,’ she said. ‘Someone’s been shooting crows and there are half a dozen dead ones on the ground. The maggots have been busy. The floor is mainly pine needles so no footprints to speak of. There’s loads of rubbish everywhere, too. T
ypical kids’ mess - fag ends, tobacco pouches, sandwich wrappers. Forensics are all over it, and the pathologist is waiting for you.’

Gould winked at her. ‘Good job, Lizzie.’

Dan stared at the DCI. He’d winked … at a female PC. Jesus! What century did he come from? He shook his head as PC Singh handed them their protective clothing.

Gould complained through the entire process, irritating Dan, who had got into his suit with ease. He felt obliged to wait for Gould to make yet another attempt to close the zip before they could head into the crime scene.

They followed the path through the trees, pulling on latex gloves. Campbell Fox, the pathologist, was sitting on a log, writing up his notes.
      
‘Aha! It’s the cavalry at last. I was ready to lie doon next to the wee lassie myself.’ He stopped and did an obvious double take. ‘Ian Gould! I thought you’d retired to Budleigh Salterton or another one of God’s waiting rooms.’

Gould laughed and shook Fox’s hand.

‘It’s been way too long Cam, you old bear. Still fly-fishing? Still not managed to catch yourself a wife?’

Dan studied the clearing and the position of the tent that protected the body. He wouldn’t approach until the pathologist gave him the nod, so he was trying to work out how the girl might have arrived at the wood. It was a nightmare of a crime scene, as PC Singh had said. He picked out a path through to the school playing fields, and one that seemed to lead to a narrow lane that ran alongside the school grounds. It was unlikely she would have entered via the school, too public. They were bound to have CCTV on the main gates, though, so he could check.

The DCI and his mate were still standing there joking with a dead girl lying just a couple of feet away. Dan shook his head for the second time that day. He wanted to shout at Gould,
Get your priorities right, man
, but common sense compressed his lips into a flat line. He ignored their banter until he heard his name.

‘This is Detective Inspector Hellier,’ said Gould, ‘Dan Hellier. He’s leading on this case – his first and my last. Dan, this is Dr Campbell Fox, the best, well, probably the only, leadi
ng pathologist to come out of the Gorbals. He is the expert. Be glad we’ve got him.’

Dan turned, took in the vast girth, height and beard for the first time, and felt a bit overwhelmed. Standing at just less than six feet, Dan felt short compared to this giant.

‘Pleasure to meet you, sir.’ He put out a hand and felt it disappear into the moist softness of Fox’s paw. Together they ducked under the flap of the tent and Dan experienced the familiar feeling of cold, of quiet stillness, that being in the presence of death always brought. Even Gould was quiet.

Fox turned the girl onto her back. Dan knelt and studied her face, close enough to see each eyelash on the good eye, far enough away to ignore the gaping darkness where her other eye should have been. She had dark hair and pale skin, just like him. She was slender, and tall, just like him. She could be his sister.

He breathed rapidly through his nose. It had been the substance of his nightmares for years, that one day he would be called to a crime scene and it would be Alison lying there, white and silent instead of this girl. Although, in Alison’s case, the cause of death would be only too easy to read in the mad dance of tracks that would, by now, be pocking every available vein in her body.

He pushed back a lock of hair from Carly Braithwaite’s face. There was so little damage, it was hard to see how she had died. Would it have been better for everybody if Alison had died, he thought, early on in her chosen career of addict, thief and prostitute, before she’d become welded into the life? He and his parents could have grieved then, and shared good memories. As it was, the only time they heard from her was when she was begging for money, or had broken into the house and taken it.

He often wondered if it was the regular police visits when he was a boy, bringing Alison home drunk, or high on Christ knew what, the tension and relief mingling with his mother’s tears, and the calmness and kindness of the officers, that had made him join up.

Fox winked at Gould over Dan’s head.

‘Straight to work, eh? Nice to see them keen. Well, you already know who she is. All the personal stuff can be read in my report at your leisure. No obvious cause of death, but there are marks on her neck and face which may indicate asphyxiation.’

Fox bent a knee and used Dan’s shoulder to steady himself as he knelt next to the body. With some delicacy and precision, he pulled back the top of Carly Braithwaite’s hoody to expose her white neck.

‘I draw your attention to the faint bruise marks on the front of the neck. Such marks may indicate pressure from a forearm, perhaps. She wasn’t strangled in the way you would understand such a term, with fingers round the throat. No ligature used.’ He pulled up the sleeve of her t-shirt. ‘There are bruises on the upper arms, consistent with being held around the biceps. The eye appears to have been dislodged by a crow or magpie post-mortem. I don’t think it relates to her death. She was fully clothed except for one shoe, and there is no bag, phone, purse or anything else personal in the immediate area.’

Dan noticed that Fox lost his strong Glasgow accent when he was in professional mode. Seven years at medical school in Edinburgh would do that to a man. He’d lost his own Devon burr after three years with the Met. It didn’t do to give people too much ammunition.

‘Any idea what time she might have died?’

Fox pushed himself up and sat on the log to gather his notes.

‘Rigor Mortis has set in, so at least twelve hours ago, but I’ll know more when we get her back to the hospital. She has got some pooling of the blood suggesting she was either carried here and dumped, or moved within the copse to hide her. That’s what Forensics are doing now, trying to work out if she was brought here post-mortem, and if so, how.’

Dan stood up and stepped back outside to join Gould.

‘D’you know what I hated most about working Vice?’

‘I didn’t know you had,’ said Gould.

‘It was finding girls like this. I could cope with the whores and the druggies, but young kids like this, wrong place, wrong time…makes me angry.’