Dead at First Sight

114 Friday 12 October

The drizzle finally let up and, to the relief of PC Doug Riley who was drenched to the skin, the sun came out. He pulled a flapjack from his rucksack and took a bite. Then he froze as he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.

Hastily swallowing and replacing the rest, he zipped the bag up and waited. A taxi bumped along the cart track past him, headed around the driveway and pulled up outside the front door. With the smell of exhaust fumes in his nostrils, Riley watched through his binoculars as the rear door opened and the passenger climbed out.

Not the tall black man he’d been briefed to expect.

The man paying the driver looked to be in his late fifties. He was dressed in a tweedy jacket, checked shirt and blue cords, with well-groomed grey hair. As the taxi drove off the man looked around, seemingly getting his bearings, then walked to the front door. He had no luggage, just a coat over his arm.

Riley lowered the binoculars, raised his camera, zoomed in and took a series of photographs as the man let himself in with a key.

As soon as the front door closed, Riley spoke into his radio. ‘Mike Whisky One to Mike Whisky Two.’

‘Mike Whisky Two,’ the response came almost instantly from his colleague, from his hideout somewhere beyond the rear of the house.

‘An IC1 — white male — late fifties, has just arrived in a taxi and entered the house, using a key,’ Riley informed him.

‘Workman?’

‘No, he looks posh.’

‘Port out, starboard home,’ Hastings said.

‘What?’

‘Just being facetious.’

‘Save it,’ Riley said. ‘This man’s not on our brief or radar. We’re waiting for an IC1 female, late fifties, a tall IC3 in his thirties and the possibility of another IC1, a short, thin guy, might be walking with a limp. So any idea who this visitor might be?’

‘A burglar?’

‘With his own front-door key?’

‘Good point!’

Riley radioed the support team, asking if there was intel on anyone else expected at the house.

Moments later a request was radioed back, asking him to ping the photographs, urgently, to the Silver command team.