Knight & Culverhouse Box Set - Books 7-9

Chapter 7

7

There was always an odd atmosphere at the first team briefing on a murder case. There was undoubted excitement — big cases like this were the reason most of the officers were in the job. But amongst the fervour was an anxiety. When you reduced it down to its barest bones, the fact was that there was a killer loose in the local area.

Jack Culverhouse watched as the team assembled. Although he would have to lean heavily on forensics experts, profilers and, quite likely, computer technicians, the core of his team consisted of four detectives who he’d worked with closely on a number of cases over the past few years.

His longest-standing colleagues were Detective Sergeants Frank Vine and Steve Wing, two men who were very much of the same old-school style of policing as Jack. Frank had been talking about retirement for as long as Jack could remember, although he had to admit his levels of effort tended to resemble retirement at the best of times. Steve was often more enthusiastic, but lacked tact, subtlety and basic hygiene.

The team’s stalwart Detective Constable, Debbie Weston, was still taking time off from work after temporarily moving to the south coast to look after her sick mother.

The team had been joined fairly recently by Detective Constable Ryan Mackenzie, who had tested Culverhouse’s inbuilt prejudices from a number of angles. She had proven herself a very bright and able addition to the team, and Wendy in particular had spotted her talents from early on.

Wendy was considered by just about everyone to be Culverhouse’s second in command. Even he knew that, but would certainly never admit it. For now, though, she was still on restricted duties after an incident a few months earlier which left her hospitalised and with a painful recovery process.

The unconventional structure of Mildenheath CID meant that things were done differently. County police headquarters had threatened Mildenheath CID with closure on a number of occasions, but it remained as the last satellite CID unit in the county — if not the region — entirely because of Mildenheath’s ongoing struggles with major and violent crime and the Chief Constable’s ongoing support for Culverhouse’s unit. Charles Hawes wouldn’t be around forever, though, and it was generally accepted that the team were living on borrowed time.

Jack feared what would happen if the unit was subsumed into county headquarters at Milton House. The site was impressive, but it was miles away from Mildenheath and any of the county’s crime hotspots. There were already pockets of minor and petty crime creeping into certain towns and villages where the police presence had been lost due to swingeing government cuts. Taking the CID unit out of one of the country’s murder hotspots would be catastrophic.

So, Mildenheath CID had been grudgingly allowed to continue its operations, but the elected Police and Crime Commissioner had made it clear that there was no margin for error. If cases weren’t solved swiftly and if the crime rate continued to rise or hold steady, it would be curtains for Culverhouse and his unit. They’d be shifted up to Milton House to work under the auspices of DCI Malcolm Pope, a man many at Mildenheath CID despised.

Pope was a supercilious bastard, and that was putting it lightly. He was a career officer with his eyes on the top prize, and he didn’t care who he trampled on during his journey there. He was smug, arrogant and self-aggrandising, and he wouldn’t hesitate to take complete credit for someone else’s work. Fortunately for Culverhouse and his team, Pope was kept at arm’s length, nestled away quietly in his office at Milton House, in the north of the county.

‘Right,’ Culverhouse started. ‘This is the first team briefing on Operation Counterflow. Another fine choice of name by the computer.’

Each case was assigned a name by the police computer, based on dictionary entries. The senior investigating officer had the power to overrule the computer and assign a different name if the initial suggestion was deemed to be in any way inappropriate, although this was rare. The last occasion had been the assignment of the name Operation Scuba to a case investigating the suspicious death of a woman found dead in her bathtub — a name which was very quickly changed to Operation Nightingale.

‘This is the investigation into the deaths of two as yet unnamed males, referred to for the time being as Male One and Male Two,’ Culverhouse continued. ‘Found buried below undergrowth on Hollybush Lane, near Middlebrook. The bodies were discovered by a dog walker, believe it or not, called Gwen O’Connell, who lives almost opposite the spot where they were buried. Handily for us, she’s got CCTV on the front of her house which covers the road, so we should be able to get something from that. The only way to the site by vehicle is past Mrs O’Connell’s house. We should hear back on that very soon, actually.

‘The bodies are being recovered as we speak. If there’s still no identifying factors they’ll be DNA tested to see if there’s a match on the computer. If not, we’ll have to go to a public appeal. As you can understand, that’s something I’d rather avoid, so fingers crossed something comes back positive.’

Culverhouse’s desk phone rang. He stopped the meeting for a moment to answer it, noting down what the caller said before coming back to address the rest of the room.

‘Right. Perfect timing. CCTV footage is in. They’ve got a white van shown parking up near the layby just before 1.30am. It’s mostly out of shot and only side-on, but you can see the van slowing down to park and just about see the bleed from the brake lights at the edge for a few seconds after, apparently. Looks like this is our van. They’re sending the footage over as we speak. Ryan, Steve, can you find out what other cameras were active in the area around that time. See if there’s a similar vehicle shown entering or leaving the vicinity. Hopefully we can get a number plate from that and trace it back.’

Once again, Culverhouse was interrupted by the ringing of his desk phone. This time, the familiar voice of Dr Janet Grey, the pathologist, was on the other end of the line. He listened intently as she spoke, raising his eyebrows every now and again as she told him her preliminary findings.

‘Post-mortem’s still going on, but Dr Grey has a few things she wanted to relay to us which might help us make a start,’ he told the room when the call was over. ‘There are puncture marks on both victims’ necks, consistent with having been injected. The full toxicology results will confirm that for definite, but for now we need to assume that was the cause of death. There are no signs of blunt trauma.

‘One of the victims has a tattoo on his left ankle, in Cyrillic script. Using the ultra hi-tech Google Translate, she managed to work out that it was a bizarre Serbian phrase that probably roughly translates as “Fortune favours the brave”. The phrase might not mean anything, but the fact it’s in Serbian probably does. We need to see if we can find any Serbs living locally who might be persons of interest, Frank. See who we’ve already got on the system. The other thing she found interesting — her words, not mine — were signs of anal trauma on both men. Not recent or severe enough to have caused their deaths, but, and I quote: “commensurate with homosexual activity”. In other words, they were fudge packers.’

‘Could it be a hate crime?’ Wendy asked, ignoring Culverhouse’s last comment. ‘Perhaps someone who took exception to them being gay.’

‘A lot of those Eastern Europeans don’t like the gays,’ Frank Vine said, in his usual carefully considered style. ‘If they were involved with gangsters or something and word got back that they were bum b—’

‘Yes, thank you, Frank,’ Culverhouse interrupted, keen not to be outdone in the crudeness stakes. ‘Let’s just stick to the facts for now. Dr Grey’s going to call us when she knows more, but that should be plenty for us to go on for now. Either way, time is of the essence so let’s get moving.’

Not only were the first hours of a murder investigation absolutely crucial to the outcome, but Culverhouse knew he needed to wrap up Operation Counterflow as quickly as possible for his own sake.

As if fate knew what he was thinking, the phone rang again — this time it was his mobile.

‘Yes?’ Jack barked, not recognising the number on the screen.

‘Jack? It’s Martin Cummings,’ said the voice on the other end of the line.

‘How the f**k did you get my mobile number?’ Jack asked. Martin Cummings was the county’s Police and Crime Commissioner — a position invented and created for each police force in the country, and which was decided by public vote. Many police officers — Jack included — hated the idea of politicians getting involved in local policing, but there was very little they could do about it.

‘It’s listed on the intranet directory. Listen, I’d like to meet with you, if that’s alright. I’ve got something I want to speak to you about. Are you free this morning?’

‘Not really, no. I’m in the middle of a mu— uh, investigation.’

‘It’ll only take a few minutes. And you won’t need to go anywhere. I’m coming down to Mildenheath anyway.’

Oh joy, Jack thought to himself. ‘If it can possibly wait, it would be much appreciated. I’m waiting on some very important—’

‘Will eleven o’clock suit? I won’t take up much of your time.’

‘Even if it could just wait until tomorrow, that would really h—’

‘I’ll give you a call when I get there. See you soon.’

Jack stood and stared into space, before pulling the phone away from his ear and seeing that the call had been disconnected. Shaking his head, he muttered one solitary word.

‘Cunt.’