Hit and Run

Chapter Two

Butchers and Shap, sergeants both: the one big-boned, plump and ginger-haired, the other trim, sharp-faced and balding, caught the call when the Mercedes was found. On their way back from a training day on community liaison that had been cancelled due to illness, it was Butchers whose ears pricked up as the radio squawked into life. ‘Stolen vehicle, wanted in connection with RTA, driver failed to stop. Blue Mercedes, registration Victor 384, Zulu, November, Bravo. Reported on waste ground off Dunham Lane. Unit to attend.’

Butchers jerked his head at Shap.

‘Base, we’ve got this,’ Shap said.

Butchers took the next left, his homely face set rigid with determination.

When they reached the windswept location the car was still ablaze; thick, oily smoke coiled up into the air carrying the stink of burning rubber and plastic. Hard to tell it had been a Mercedes, let alone a blue one.

Butchers sighed volubly.

‘Flambé.’ Shap said. ‘Owner’s going to be made up, isn’t he?’

‘Better get forensics on this.’

Shap gave a derisory snort. ‘They’ll be lucky. Be like getting prints off a cinder.’ Nevertheless he dialled the number, reported what they’d found and took details of the registered keeper – a Mr James Harper – who had reported the theft the previous evening.

‘You up for this?’ Shap nodded at the wreck.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Butchers glared at him.

‘Well, just… you know…’ Butchers had only confided in Shap about it all once: a very drunken night before either had got their stripes when all the other coppers had gone home and just the two of them were left, slurring words and spilling drinks. Butchers had turned out to be a sentimental drunk though he hadn’t wallowed in his own story, just mentioned it when they were talking about why they’d joined the force. Shap had asked a few questions and Butchers had given him the facts, though not much more, and then the talk had turned to something else, something less personal and that had been it. Not a whisper since.

Now Butchers just kept staring ahead.

‘Fine,’ Shap raised his hands in surrender. ‘Forget it!’ That’s the way you want to play it, he thought, then fine, no problemo. Maybe back then Butchers had been so pissed that he hadn’t remembered telling Shap at all? Shap had no idea if anyone else at the station knew. Probably not. Well, at the end of the day it was Butchers’ funeral; Shap had given him a get out clause and he’d turned it down. What else could he do?

James Harper had what the estate agents would call a desirable residence on the outskirts of Sale, south of the city. Butchers ran an eye over the facade with approval. Some of these more modern houses were slipshod but he knew quality when he saw it; even the wood cladding was patently high-grade material and the dimensions were generous. Integral garage, picture windows above. Nice landscaping in the front, low maintenance gravel and alpines. Solid hardwood door, though the rest was uPVC. Must be making a bob or two, Butchers thought, place like this and running a Merc. All right for some.

‘Detective Sergeant Shap, Sergeant Butchers,’ Shap made the introductions. ‘You reported your car stolen last night?’

Harper’s face lit up with surprise. The smile accentuated his prominent cheekbones and the deep dimple in his chin. ‘You’ve found it? I thought it’d be halfway to Russia, by now.’

Butchers grimaced.

‘If we can come in, sir,’ Shap said.

They followed Harper through to his lounge. Harper smoothed his hair back over his head. Long at the back. Compensation, Shap recognised immediately, the deep forehead testimony to a receding hairline. Shap had never gone that route. Kept his short.

‘We have found the car,’ said Shap, ‘but it’s a write-off.’

‘A write-off?’ Harper’s face fell. ‘I’ve only had it three months,’ he said, exasperated.

Butchers took over. ‘I’m afraid your vehicle was involved in a road traffic accident earlier this morning. Hit and run.’

Harper’s expression changed to one of shock. ‘What happened?’

‘Little girl knocked down. She’s in hospital.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘We’re still trying to find the driver,’ Shap explained. ‘Did you see anything when your car was stolen?’

‘Not a thing. I was in the house when it happened, as well. Car on the drive, crook-lock, immobiliser, the works. I couldn’t believe it…’

Butchers and Shap exchanged a look. Harper wasn’t going to be much use to them. Just another statistic in the auto-theft figures.

‘It was definitely our side of the boundary, not Stockport’s?’ Detective Chief Superintendent Leonard Hackett glared at Janine and Richard.

‘Yes, sir,’ Richard replied.

‘Shame. So, Janine – you’ll take the rudder?’

He wanted her to lead the enquiry. She glanced at Richard; while she had been on leave, he had acted as lead officer and she knew he hoped to keep that level of responsibility.

Richard cleared his throat. ‘But, sir, I thought I’d be…’

Hackett frowned. ‘DCI Lewis is back now.’

Janine stepped in. ‘Sir, I’d really like to pursue the hit and run.’

‘Well, Mayne can lead on that.’ He gave a bright, vacant grin.

‘Can I suggest we team up and cover both?’ Janine said, trying to find a way she could stay involved with the accident.

Hackett pursed his lips, pulling the face that had led Janine to nickname him The Lemon. ‘The troops need to know who’s in charge. Clear chain of command.’ He thought for a moment. ‘No. You should lead on both, Janine.’

She felt Richard stiffen.

‘Obviously the murder is the priority,’ Hackett added.

‘Yes, sir.’

She could see the tension around Richard’s mouth, the irritation in his eyes, though he didn’t say anything.

Hackett nodded in dismissal and the pair of them stood and left his office.

Once they were out of earshot, Richard let rip. ‘He was happy enough while you were on maternity leave. I cleared three major enquiries for him, three!’

‘It’s not you – it’s him,’ she told him. ‘You’ll get there. He can’t put it off forever he’ll have to promote you. He did the same with me.’

Richard sighed, slapped at the wall in frustration.

‘You’ll get it, you will.’

She recalled her own promotion to Chief Inspector. Not the most favourite day of her life. Oh, the promotion had been a triumph – it was what followed that had floored her. Going home to celebrate with her husband Pete, only to find him in bed – yes, their bed – with the home help. End of celebration, end of marriage. She’d given Pete a second chance, felt obliged to, seeing as she was six months pregnant with baby number four, but Pete had picked Tina the cleaner instead. Work had kept Janine sane then. A place apart from all the miserable pain of splitting up.

Richard sighed harshly again, shook his head, still annoyed.

Janine looked at him. ‘So, you going to stay here and have a paddy or shall we get on with it?’

He glowered at her for a moment, and then relented, knowing she was right. He jerked his head in assent.

‘I’m off to the post-mortem,’ she told him. ‘Pull everyone in for two. Incident room one.’

When his mobile rang, Chris Chinley was flushing out a central heating radiator in the backyard of the house where he was working. The black sludge guttered out from one end as he poured water in the other. Not been cleared for maybe forty years, full of silt and grit.

He grunted at the ring tone and lowered the radiator, balancing it against the weathered brick wall. Only a small yard in spite of the size of the house: three storeys, four bedrooms, high ceilings, each with the original plaster rose and covings.

Chris pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, already anticipating another customer. Business was booming. A shortage of plumbers had coincided with soaring demand. People wanted two or even three bathrooms in a property, ensuite to the master bedroom, showers and bidets, sometimes a jacuzzi. He’d actually done a hot tub the previous month, in Hale, Cheshire – richest area outside of London.

He didn’t recognise the caller number on display. ‘Chinley’s,’ he said.

Chris listened to the voice on the phone. He swallowed hard, ran his free hand over the coarse, close-cropped hair on his skull. Shaking his head, he stared down at the flagstones, watched the pitch-black water stutter from the radiator, thin to a trickle, then snake along the cracks between the flags and into the gutter that ran out to the alley at the back.

Post-mortems were never pleasant but Janine attended them whenever she could. It helped her maintain a good working relationship with the pathologists but, more importantly, it was something she felt she owed the victim. To bear witness. The aroma of the river still clung in the air. The woman lay, still wrapped in the rubbish bags, on the dissecting table. Her face was a horrible mess; Janine took it in with a glance and cast her gaze elsewhere.

She listened intently while Susan worked on the woman’s body, sharing in the meticulous process of description and observation as first the external, then internal examinations were made. Susan photographed the body, took measurements and made notes of its appearance before cutting away the wrappings and removing the plastic gym weights. After taking more photographs and x-rays, including dental x-rays, she took samples from the wounds on the face and thigh, scrapings from under the nails and a number of hairs. Then she began the process of dissection: opening the body and examining, removing and weighing the major organs. Susan took blood samples from the heart, tissue and fluid from the lungs and a sample of stomach contents for toxicology. She swabbed the orifices.

The smell affected Janine more than the sight of these things. The unmistakeable offal odour of liver and lungs. And the sound of the saw, when Susan opened the skull.

Janine thanked her when the procedure was over and offered to get her a snack from the canteen.

‘Something to keep me going?’ Susan said wryly.

Janine smiled, acknowledging the tactic. She wanted the report in time for her briefing.

‘Chicken korma on granary, black coffee, banana.’ Susan removed her gloves with a flourish.

Janine bowed. It was the least she could do.

By two o’clock the photographs of the body and the riverside site were already up on the boards in the incident room. A video loop was running on a monitor, detailing the recovery of the corpse and location shots of the immediate vicinity. Maps on one wall depicted the river and push-pins in blue indicated locations that would be searched to try and determine where the body had entered the water. Three of these pins had already been replaced with yellow ones – these places had already been visited and nothing had been found.

The incident room was on the fifth floor of the building, windows on three sides giving a clear vista out across the city centre and nearby Salford; rooftops, canals, the quays and the wide Manchester sky; here and there the distinctive outline of a landmark building: the prow of the Lowry, the triangular peak of Urbis and a sea of cranes bobbing and wheeling in the never-ending business of construction.

Janine moved in front of the boards, signalling to those milling about that they were ready to begin. Over twenty people occupied the room, most in civilian clothes, one or two uniforms. The hubbub of chatter died down as people slid into seats and opened their notebooks. Keeping detailed records at every stage of an enquiry was a detective’s lot: nothing was said, acted upon or looked into without an entry into an officer’s daybook. It became second nature, ingrained.

Janine smiled in welcome. ‘I’m DCI Lewis; some of you have worked with me before.’

‘Thought you looked familiar,’ Butchers said, ‘something’s different though.’ He mimed a bump on his stomach.

‘Still got yours, haven’t yer?’ Shap shot back at him, nodding in the direction of Butchers’ paunch. Butchers glowered, sat up straighter.

Janine continued, introducing the senior officers to the room. ‘Detective Inspector Richard Mayne, Sergeant Butchers and Sergeant Shap. Any uncertainties about procedure, any questions or problems,’ she told the DCs, ‘these guys,’ she gestured to the two sergeants, ‘are your first port of call. This will be our dedicated incident room. So what have we got?’ She turned to the boards. ‘Unknown victim was seen in the river at Northenden just before eight this morning. First priority is to try and identify her. Our second to establish where she was killed.’

‘It’s likely that the body entered the river to the east,’ Richard said, pointing to the wall map and indicating the large area they were searching, ‘so that narrows it down,’ he added dryly. ‘We’re searching all known access points within a five mile area.’

Janine raised the report she held. ‘The post-mortem confirms the victim was in her early twenties. Malnourished as a child and since. Pregnant, about two months.’ She noted the rustle of unease at that bit of information. ‘Signs of recent sexual activity. Cause of death – strangulation. Time of death estimated to be within twenty-four hours of her discovery The trauma to the face occurred post mortem, as did the removal of skin from the thigh. And I don’t think he was collecting souvenirs.’

‘Someone wants her incognito,’ said Shap.

‘Heavy; rectangular object used on the face, possibly a brick,’ Richard elaborated. ‘The lab will do a drugs and toxins screening.’

‘They’ve also recovered some tissue from under her fingernails; we’re running DNA on that. Anything else?’ She invited contributions from the floor.

‘We’ve sent details through the system, missing from home – no match as yet,’ Butchers supplied.

Shap raised his chin. ‘Have we got anything from the post-mortem that gives us the scene?’

‘No,’ Janine answered. ‘A day in the river hasn’t helped. They’ll be examining remnants of bin bags used to wrap the body and the gym weights.’

‘Could be a fitness fanatic – the weights?’ Butchers suggested.

‘Bog standard,’ Richard shook his head.

‘I reckon everyone’s got a set like that,’ said Janine, ‘shoved in the cupboard along with the foot spa and the yoghurt maker.’ People smiled. ‘The pathologist also noted some blue staining on the left ankle, knee and hip.’

‘More tattoos?’ Shap asked.

‘No. Here.’ Richard pointed to the photographs, tracing the discolouration around the hip and knee. ‘It’s faint, no particular shape.’

‘They’ll come back to us when they’ve more on that,’ said Janine. She raised her head and looked round the room at the team before her. Some of the young officers were setting out on their first major investigation; some would never have seen a dead body before. They had no idea how much the case would dominate their lives in the weeks to come or of the peculiar mix of tedium and excitement that would characterise the work they had to do: the referencing and cross-checking, door knocking and listening, the endless paperwork. And, here and there, the surge of action, the buzz of closing in on their quarry; the breaks that made it all worthwhile.

‘We’re looking for a lot of help from the public on this one; it’ll be all over the papers, but you lot, discretion. Please – don’t natter about it down the pub – or at the gym.’ Janine paused. When she spoke again her voice was reflective, a shade quieter, forcing them to listen harder, focus on what she was saying. ‘You all have something to bring to solving this case. If you have ideas – share them. If there’s some detail that sticks out – check it. Don’t be afraid to ask if anything confuses you. We’re here to learn – all of us. The day you stop learning is the day you stop being a good detective. Sergeant Shap will allocate teams for the initial stages and briefings will be held daily, first thing until further notice.’ She gestured at the boards again. ‘A young woman, killed then mutilated. Who was she? Who wanted her dead? That’s why we’re here.’ She motioned to the picture from the riverside, the one of the body on the grassy bank: sodden hair, a slim wrist, the graceful hand, fingers gently curved. ‘That’s who we’re here for.’