With a Narrow Blade (5 page)

The two women worked separately in silence for half an hour. Then Hillary’s phone rang. ‘DI Greene. Steven, hello. You extracted it?’ She listened carefully to the police surgeon’s description of the murder weapon, making notes in her book as she did so.

‘It’s like I thought,’ Steven Partridge said from his desk at the morgue. ‘It’s a long, very narrow, extremely sharp blade, almost certainly foreign in manufacture. Probably meant as a paperknife. The damned thing’s lethal – both edges as sharp as my mother-in-law’s tongue. Can’t see any hallmarks on it, no ‘Made in Spain’ or what have you. It’s on its way to you as I speak.’

Hillary grunted her thanks, noting the arrival of the afternoon internal mail. She nodded a vague thanks as the secretary left a pile on her desk, and watched idly as she did the same for Janine. ‘Any chance of bumping her autopsy to the head of the queue, doc?’

‘Not much. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks.’

As she hung up, she saw Janine rifle through her mail and then go very still. From where she was sitting, Hillary saw her extract a long brown envelope that was addressed to her in distinctive green ink.

Janine felt her flesh begin to crawl, and the niggling, now familiar sense of paranoia creep over her. Another one, so soon after the last. She glanced instinctively around, then froze as she saw Hillary Greene watching her. Her face flamed briefly with colour and she shoved the envelope quickly into her In tray, then began to open the rest.

Hillary picked up the phone, watching Janine thoughtfully as she speed-dialled Frank’s number. ‘Frank, it’s me. You still with Walter Keane? Good, see if he remembers Flo Jenkins having a narrow, sharp paperknife amongst her things. It’s important,’ she added sharply. ‘Thanks.’

If the killer had brought the weapon with him or her, then they were looking at premeditated murder. And if they could trace the weapon, they had a chance at tracing the killer.

‘Janine, I don’t trust this paperknife business to Frank. When you’ve finished, go back and talk to the woman across the street, see if she’s ever seen this paperknife in our victim’s possession. If not, try and get from her the names of people who knew Flo best and ask them about it.’

Janine sighed heavily. ‘Right, boss, I’ll go now. This lot’ll take a few minutes to print out anyway.’ She slung on her coat and walked to the door. The moment she was gone, Hillary got up and went to her sergeant’s In tray. There she extracted the long brown envelope, and tapped it thoughtfully against her palm.

Then she carefully opened it.

H
illary slowly pulled the folded piece of white paper out of the envelope, conscience tickling the back of her mind like an old parrot feather. She didn’t make a habit of reading other people’s mail, and when she did, she usually had a signed warrant enabling and entitling her to do so. To read a co-worker’s private correspondence was as far removed from that as it was possible to get. Nevertheless, Hillary was used to relying on her gut. In her job you used everything you had – intelligence, experience, luck, grim determination, the lot. Right now, her instinct was screaming at her that Janine Tyler was in some sort of trouble. And Janine Tyler, until the end of next week at least, was her responsibility.

Gingerly she turned the piece of paper over and unfolded it. As she did so, it fleetingly occurred to her that she could have read the signals wrong. What if Janine was having an affair? What if she’d been acting like a cat on hot bricks because she was scared Hillary or Mel would find out? What if this was a bloody love letter, for Pete’s sake? Inside, Hillary began to squirm, and before she could talk herself out of it she opened the paper fully out and gave it a quick glance. If it was handwritten, and the salutation read, ‘Darling sugarbabe,’ or something equally appalling, she’d put it back quickly, and would read no further.

One glance however was enough to put all such thoughts right of out her head. The letter had been printed from a computer, was totally in block capitals, and was about as affectionate as a stick of dynamite.

Grimly, Hillary read it.

At this point, the wording became very graphic and descriptive, and Hillary raised her eyebrows as she read the suggestions. ‘Very imaginative,’ she murmured to herself, sitting back down in her chair and placing the paper carefully on her table.

Reaching into her drawer, she drew out from the very back a dusty red tin case. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it, but it had to have been back in her uniform days out of Headington. She opened it and eyed the fat, soft brushes, the magnifying glass and tin of fingerprint powder and shook her head. Nowadays the lab did all this, and coppers had no need of them. Not even in her young days at the very beginning of her career. But an old sarge had handed it down to her on his retirement, plus a few lessons in how to use it. ‘Never know when it might come in handy,’ he’d said, grinning widely. At the time she’d been too young and naïve to wonder what he’d been on about. She’d kept it more for sentimental reasons than anything else. Now she blessed his foresight.

Feeling rusty at this kind of thing, she set tentatively to work, but wasn’t really surprised to find, a few minutes later, that the paper was clean of all dabs, save her own. Whoever their boy was, he knew enough to wear gloves. Which was hardly surprising.

Because it had to be one of their own.

The envelope, she’d noticed, had no stamp, which meant it was generated internally. Now there were all sorts of civilians who worked out of HQ of course, from admin staff, to canteen workers, cleaners, not to mention the contracted help – window cleaners, sewage and drainage experts, hell, even the man who came and mended the office equipment, or delivered the water bottles used in the public areas. But how would any of them know how the internal mail was delivered? Answer, they wouldn’t.

No, this had bluebottle written all over it. Whoever had written it had made no attempt to misspell it or be other than fairly grammatically correct. And there was no mistaking the frustrated venom over that crack about Janine not being able to get promotion except by sleeping with the boss.

She’d bet a month’s salary that this had been written by some Jack-the-lad in uniform, who spent his nights fantasizing over soft porn, and his days craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the pretty blonde sergeant.

Hillary sighed and put her ancient finger-printing equipment away, then read the rest of the note, skipping over the graphic bits, which had become boring and repetitious, to the ending.

It was signed, of all things, LOVERBOY.

Hillary slowly blew all trace evidence of fingerprint dust from it, put it back in the envelope, resealed it and returned it to Janine’s tray. Then she ran a tired hand over her face. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with as it was. Now this. Well, it would have to be nipped in the bud pretty quick. Letting a sick mind like this one run free and getting away with a powerplay was just asking for trouble. No, he’d have to go. And she had a pretty good idea how to go about it.

She wasn’t surprised that Janine hadn’t confided in her, or taken any steps to make it official. A woman police officer being stalked in her own nick wouldn’t please the brass, and there would inevitably be the immature dicks who would snigger at her behind her back. And with her wedding coming up, the last thing Janine would want was to look weak or in need of ‘hubby’s’ help. No doubt that was what the dirty little bastard who’d written it was relying on. Well, he was in for one nasty surprise!

Keith Barrington returned to HQ, his stomach rumbling, but decided to give the canteen a miss. Lunch hour was long gone, anyway. Instead he raided the vending machine on the second floor and munched on a Mars bar on his way up to the main office.

Only Hillary Greene was at her desk when he peeked through the big glass doors. He waited outside until he’d finished the chocolate, then threw the wrapper in a bin and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand to remove any evidence, walked across to join her.

Hillary watched him approach, waited until he had sat down, and said briefly, ‘Anything?’

‘Guv.’ He opened his notebook and quickly scanned his notes. ‘I’ve got two people who saw someone walk up Mrs Jenkins’ garden path around seven last night. I can’t pin either of them down to more than that. One, the man who lives opposite and two doors down, Mr Lionel Manfred, was leaving for his night shift and saw someone, he thought a young lad, approach the old lady’s door. He was driving past at the time, though and didn’t see our victim open the door to him. Nor did he recall seeing any unusual vehicle parked on the road. His description is vague – it was dark, he wasn’t paying attention. He thought the visitor might have been wearing a cap. Not a big bulking chap, maybe five foot eight or nine. Mr Manfred also thought he might have been carrying something. He had the vague impression of something white being held in his hand, but can’t be sure. Maybe a shopping bag, maybe not.’ He paused, turned the page and nodded.

‘The second witness saw more or less the same thing, only he was coming back from work. He saw an average built, youthful figure walking back down the path. He can’t be more specific about time either. Apparently he can get home from work anytime between 6.30 and 7.30 depending on traffic and hold-ups on the motorway. He works in Brum. That’s it.’

Hillary sighed. ‘We might have to put out an appeal on the local radio, then. If whoever it was had a legitimate reason for being there, they might come forward. On the other hand, if he’s our man, he’ll be alerted that he was seen. I’ll have to give it some thought. Anything else you picked up on the vic herself?’

‘No guv, everybody liked her. She wasn’t one of those cantankerous sorts who put people’s backs up, apparently. Lived there for donkey’s years, never complained about anyone or anything. Salt of the earth.’

Hillary sighed again. ‘It’s looking more and more like robbery was the motive.’

And yet, what kind of burglar or home mugger actually stabbed a victim through the heart with an ornamental paperknife? It was overkill to such an extent that it worried her. Also, the room had been too tidy. Flo hadn’t put up even a token struggle. Surely if a youth, or even gang of youths had forced their way in, or even conned their way in, there’d be more evidence of their presence in the victim’s home?

‘You don’t like robbery, guv?’ Barrington said cautiously, and Hillary glanced at him. So, he was reading her was he? Well, why not? She’d have done the same in his place.

‘It doesn’t smell right to me,’ she said. It was, after all, part of her job to train this young man, to teach him to think, to use his eyes and reason – if he was to be an asset, and not a liability. ‘I’ve seen more than my fair share of the elderly who get mugged, beaten, robbed even raped,’ she went on. ‘But this is just too … neat. She was sat in her chair, looking as if she was asleep. The doc tells me there was only the one blow, and no signs of a struggle or defence wounds. Does that sound like many muggings or robberies you’ve come across?’

Barrington shook his head. ‘No. It didn’t strike me that way either.’

Hillary nodded. So the new boy knew how to read a scene, and had at least enough experience to be confident in his own assessment. That was good. It was more than Frank Ross tended to bother with nowadays. ‘It has all the makings of a deliberate killing. And yet, why would anyone want to kill a harmless old lady who seemingly didn’t have an enemy in the world? It doesn’t make sense yet.’ She shrugged. ‘OK, we …’ she broke off as she spotted Frank Ross weaving his way through the desks, grunting at those who bothered to greet him. Not many did.

‘Guv.’ He sat down, smelling faintly of beer. ‘You were bang on the nose with that old geezer next door. Walter Keane reckons our description of the murder weapon fits exactly the paperknife Flo Jenkins kept in a vase on her mantelpiece. Apparently her daughter bought it for her on her last holiday to Spain. Flo cut her fingers badly on it once, and never used it again. Reckoned it was lethal, but she didn’t want to chuck it, on account of it was her dead daughter who gave it to her.’ Frank sniffed heavily and unbuttoned his jacket, letting his beer belly rest more comfortably on top of his desk. ‘Reading between the lines, I got the impression that Liza, that’s the dead daughter, never did much for her old mum, let alone buy her pressies, so the paperknife was of real sentimental value,’ he finished, flapping his notebook shut.

Hillary was already reaching for her copies of the crime scene photos that had come in a half hour ago. Quickly she sorted through them, paused at the ones showing the mantelpiece, then pushed them over to Keith.

The mantelpiece did indeed have what looked like a black-painted, papier mâché vase standing on it, which housed some pens and pencils and what might have been a back-scratcher.

But no paper knife.

‘So the killer didn’t bring a weapon,’ Barrington said, and would have said something more, if Ross hadn’t interrupted.

‘No shit, Sherlock. This might not be the big city, but us country bumpkins don’t need the bloody obvious pointed out to us by detective constables.’

Hillary sighed. There was no way she could fight Barrington’s battles for him, but she shot Frank a dirty look. ‘OK, Frank, I want you to start the rounds of your snouts. Find out whose turf Holburn Crescent covers. See if you can find out if there’s anything on the street about number 18 being turned over recently. Roust the local junkies, chase down anything they might have pawned today. You know the drill.’

Frank sighed heavily and rose ponderously to his feet. ‘That’s what real police work’s about,’ he sneered to Barrington, who looked back at him blank faced and unimpressed.

‘Frank, today,’ Hillary growled, knowing he was about to launch into the usual lecture about how he was under-appreciated.

Ross snorted and walked off, in a reasonably straight line. As he went, Hillary reached for the preliminary forensic reports. They didn’t make for very happy reading. Oh, there was lots of trace, but there always is when a crime scene happens to be in the victim’s own home. There were, for instance, fingerprints galore, but she had a hunch that all of them would turn out to belong to either the vic, Caroline Weekes, Walter Keane, or a host of other people who had a legitimate reason to be there – home help, if the victim had qualified for it, meter reader, postman, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Similarly there were fibres, hair samples, tiny amounts of blood trace and DNA to spare, probably. But unless they could isolate something specific that had no place being there, and then matched it up to a definite suspect, there was nothing to help them.

Hillary soldiered through it, but with dwindling hope. Nowadays, the public watched those forensic crime scene programmes and thought cases could solve themselves, simply on the evidence. If only!

Much as she hated to say it, Frank Ross and his knowledge of the resident low-lifes had probably the best chance of cracking open this case. Unless it had been a planned, deliberate murder.

She leaned slowly back in her chair, her eyes narrowing. Unless someone had gone to 18 Holburn Crescent specifically to kill Florence Jenkins. Now if that was the case, there had to be a reason. And once you found the motive, the chances were good that you’d be able to find the killer. But she was back to that same old question. Who would have reason to kill an old lady?

‘Keith, I want you to check the financial angle,’ she said abruptly. ‘Who knows, perhaps our vic has got thousands squirrelled away somewhere. She wouldn’t be the first old codger to live like a pauper but have thousands stashed away under the floor boards.’