Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

“News? You mean TV/radio news, or police gossip news?”

“Guy Armstrong’s dead!”

“Guy Armstrong, as in nosy, pain in the arse reporter, Guy Armstrong?”

Grace nodded. “Killed in a road accident last night.”

“You are kidding me?”

“No. Isobel told me that she bumped into the duty Inspector last night, before she went off. He was just turning out to the accident. I don’t know all of the details — Traffic are dealing — but it looks as though he’s missed a bend on his way home from the pub last night and crashed into a tree. His car went up in flames.”

“Jesus, poor guy s’cuse the pun. I know I said he was a pain in the arse, but I wouldn’t wish that on him.” Then Hunter remembered his conversation with DI Scaife. He set down his mug and rifled through his pending tray, pulling out the four scribbled notes on scrap paper he had tidied away. He spread them out on his blotter and studied each one. None contained any specific details, other than to state that Armstrong wanted to speak with him. Two contained a mobile and landline telephone number.

Suddenly he felt guilty about not calling. Hunter started to collect together the notes, and then recalled something else DI Scaife had said just before he left the office. He snatched up the handset of his desk phone and punched in his voicemail number and code. Gripping the receiver between ear and shoulder, he grabbed several blank sheets of scrap paper from a pile and picked up his pen, ready to make notes. Then he hit the number one key to retrieve his recorded calls. He had six messages on his list — five of them were old ones he had stored. Guy Armstrong’s was the only fresh one. He tapped the star key to play it. The message lasted twenty seconds. Although he had his pen poised over paper, Hunter never made a note. While listening to Guy Armstrong’s recording, his eyes wandered blankly around the office as he took it in.

When it had finished, he said excitedly, “Bloody hell Grace, just listen to this message Armstrong left me.”

He punched the play key again and engaged the speakerphone. Despite sounding a little bit mechanical, there was no doubt that it was Guy Armstrong’s voice.

“Detective Sergeant Kerr, this is Guy Armstrong. It’s important that I speak with you. I’ve just learned that Jodie Jenkinson is dead and that you are investigating it. The reason why I am ringing you is because Jodie was the source I mentioned to you the other night. It was her who tipped me off about the Lucy Blake-Hall case. A couple of weeks ago, she overheard a conversation between two people which leaves me to believe that Daniel Weaver really is innocent of her murder. I could do with seeing you. I’ve left you my mobile and home phone number and I’m going to call into the George and Dragon at Wentworth tonight to hopefully catch you. As soon as you get this message, please call me.”

Hunter struck the store key on his desk phone and slowly set down the handset.

To Grace, he said, “Talk about a voice from the grave.”

* * * * *

It was almost ten-thirty before morning briefing started.

Following Hunter’s phone call, Detective Superintendent Dawn Leggate hot-footed it back from District Headquarters, and with the help of Hunter and a member of the HOLMES team set up an incident board displaying all the latest information associated with the death of Jodie Marie Jenkinson.

Grace had printed off the computerised incident log, relating to the previous evening’s incident involving Guy Armstrong, which was still categorised as a fatal road traffic collision. The print-out was lengthy and had taken her a good quarter of an hour to read and digest. She had underlined wherever a police officer’s, or fire officer’s name appeared and had made a note of which Scenes of Crime Officer had turned out — all were potential witnesses. She had also been given the job of locating Armstrong’s address as well as finding out who he worked for.

The two Cold Case Unit detectives seconded onto the team were already hard at it, working alongside Barry Newstead, following up the previous evening’s phone calls from the Detective Superintendent’s TV broadcast, and tracking down the last few remaining witnesses from the Lucy Blake-Hall file, who had not been traced because they had either moved, changed their details, or both, since the court proceedings. Other members of the team were making phone calls relating to the tasks they had been given, or writing up the results to feed back into the system.

The sudden call of, “Okay folks, listen up,” grabbed everyone’s attention and a sea of eyes followed Detective Superintendents Michael Robshaw and Dawn Leggate as they made their way to the front of the incident room.

There were now three separate incident boards. The two SIOs stopped either side of the latest addition; the one which displayed information relating to Jodie’s death.

Michael Robshaw opened the briefing. “First things first. Last night’s TV appeal. I’m guessing you all saw it? We’ve got a couple of good calls. One of them, giving us the new details and address of a previous witness in the Daniel Weaver trial, which we’ll be following up. But one I’m especially excited about relates to Jeffery Howson’s murder. A couple who live three streets away from Jeffery were on their way back from the pub just before half-past-ten on the Saturday evening, when we believe he was killed, when they noticed a dark coloured four-by-four parked very close to the entranceway of the path which leads into the woods. And as we all know that path runs past the bottom of Jeffery Howson’s garden. I want that call following up as a priority this morning. See if we can identify that vehicle, and more importantly, if they saw anyone with it. That’s our first positive lead.” He paused and looked around the team. “We don’t happen to know what vehicle Alan Darbyshire drives do we?” The SIO’s eyes levelled on Hunter.

“To be honest boss, I never questioned him about what car he drove, because I didn’t want to arouse suspicions,” Hunter responded, “but there was a gold coloured Toyota Avensis parked in front of his house.”

“I can make a discreet phone call regarding that,” piped up Barry Newstead.

The Detective Superintendent turned to Barry. “Okay I’ll leave that one with you.” Then his attention returned to the room. He slapped a hand, palm-flat, against the incident board he was standing beside. “Okay, fresh focus everyone! Jodie Marie Jenkinson, twenty-three year old single girl, who lived at flat ten, Westville House, Victoria Road, Barnwell. She was last seen alive by her probation officer on the afternoon of Tuesday eleventh of November.” He pointed to the scenes of crime photograph which depicted her crumpled form, slumped across the concrete floor. “She was found in this state by builders, in the cellar of the old Barnwell Inn, on the morning of Friday twenty-first of November. We know from the post-mortem that her body had lain there at least a week, and that her blood results indicate that she had a high concentration of pure heroin in her system. Until yesterday, it was believed that her death was an accidental overdose. The information Hunter gained from her Probation Officer yesterday afternoon, the discovery of the burglary at her bed-sit, and the message left by reporter Guy Armstrong, who incidentally was found dead in his crashed car last night, has changed all that.” Michael Robshaw slapped the board again. “Ladies and gents, we have another post-mortem being carried out on Jodie’s body later today, but it’s my firm belief, given everything we have learned in the past twenty-four hours, that she has been murdered. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make Jodie’s death look like an accident. And I also believe we have the reason behind her murder. Her probation officer states that she had a secret, which was going to make her a lot of money and he would read about it in the papers. Guy Armstrong’s recorded message on Hunter’s voicemail states that Jodie was his source for the Lucy Blake-Hall case, and I quote, ‘a couple of weeks ago she overheard a conversation between two people’ which led him to believe that Daniel Weaver was innocent of her murder.” The Detective Superintendent then pointed beyond Jodie’s incident board to the wipe board containing the timeline sequence and information relating to the killing of Jeffery Howson. “We also have tenuous links to Jeffery’s murder, in as much as the man Hunter disturbed burgling Jodie’s bed-sit, and who assaulted him, fits the same description as the man he chased at Jeffery’s funeral.” Michael Robshaw’s eyes moved from one detective to another. “This may be just a coincidence, but I don’t like coincidences, especially when that person is linked with two murders, so until anyone brings me anything different I am linking Jodie’s death to our current investigation. And it may not end there. Traffic are bringing me the report on Guy Armstrong’s accident last night and I have specialist forensic officers joining our scenes of crime at the location to carry out a thorough examination. His accident is also just too much of a coincidence. So with that in mind I’m also organising tasks this morning relating to Guy Armstrong.” He dipped his hands into his trouser pockets, his face earnest. “In the past year we have had our fair measure of harrowing and complicated cases, but never have I known one with as many twists and turns as this. We have our work cut out.”