Gut Instinct (2 page)

Stephen
hated the song tunes that
incessantly
boomed
out in the station when it was busy.  He had put forward a suggestion to have them banned as
he felt that
they were a distraction, he had wanted everyone to have the standard ring tones, but it hadn’t gone down very well.  So he’d binned that idea for the time being and hoped that people would follow his example.

“Stephen
Roberts” he’d answered, and listened patiently to the caller on the other end.

The next thing he
knew he
was in his car and reversing out of the station car park,
with
all thoughts of this rape case
and telephone ring tones
out of his mind.

There was something
much
more serious for him to deal
with now.

The traffic was mild today on the streets of Leicester possibly because of the gentle rain that was coming down, rain that hadn’t stopped all day.  In fact for the last few months it had rained most days “wouldn’t stop a hose pipe ban in the sum
mer though” Stephen had thought, drumming his fi
ngers on the steering wheel to the rhythm
of his window wipers.

He sped past the shops, houses and factories without giving them a second gl
ance.  He knew where he was headin
g, he knew the area well.

The
Peckleton
Estate
was
a run- down council estate at the other side of town.  He’d spent a good majority of his time on this estate as a rookie cop, dealing with a many number of issues from domestic violence to drug dealing.

It was an area that
was
once a tidy housing estate for those that couldn’t
afford their own home’
s
,
but
had
now become a
neighbourhood
of poverty, drug use and juvenile offenders.
  The resident’s proudly collecting
asbo’s
as if they were medals of honour.

He turned i
nto a
cul-de-sac and immediately saw the yellow and black police tape already in place blowing soft
l
y in the mild
breeze,
opposite the wasteland
.

Behind the tape was an unusual amount of onlookers, curiosity etched on their faces.

He was on
Bakewell
Road
which
had a row of council houses on the left hand side and on the right was a working men’s clu
b
, next
to this
was a
wasteland that had recently
boasted
a children’s play area,
which
had already been
pulled apart and
defaced with graffiti
.

At club opening tim
es the play area would be full of
kids
, content
with their pop and crisps
having been
left outside to play whilst their parents were inside drinking themselves to a stupor. 

This
Stephen thought
would account for the crowds of people hovering on the wasteland
,
he looked at the clock on his dashboard, it was twelve forty five,
and a Saturday,
and the
club
woul
d have been
packed at this time
.  It wouldn’t have taken long for word to get around.

He pulled up behind two police cars and a forensic van, got out of the car and took a quick glance at the onlookers, some holding pints of beer, nosey, but not nosey enough to leave their drinks on the bar.  Kids sitting on their bike
’
s, or with skateboards tucked under their arms. 

They were all looking at him, no doubt inquisitively
wondering who he was. 

Was he someone they could ask what was going o
n, so that they could spread
rumour
s
instantly around their peers,
adding bits on, the more gruesome  the better enabling them  to
score
points.  It was
their warped perception of
information
sharing, so that they could then
bask in their own glory. For a while
, a
very short while at least, their kudos inflated.

He walked up to the house, ducked under the police tape and showed his card to the officer on guard outside the crime scene. 

Stephen didn’t know what to expect when he entered the house
, he’d not been given all the details,
he’d
not asked for them
, he had been
too eager to get there and get down to work.
 

He was pleased to see that two of his officers Derek Angus and John
Waterstone
had followed all the necessary procedures.  The police tape had been put in place and the scene of crime officers were there
in their white ghost like overalls
protecting the scene, and collecting evidence that would be vital to a court case.

Just
as J
ohn
had co
me into his thoughts he spotted him
walking towards him, looking calm but a sha
de whiter than he normally looked
.

“What’s cooking?” he asked, as John approached him.

“Girl dead sir” he replied “Jane Smith,
thirty five years old, single mum. Looks like she has been suffocated with her own pillow, she was found this morning by her sister who had been bab
ysitting her little boy, she
brought him back at eleven as had been pre-arranged and she found her on the floor dead.”

“Any leads?
Where are
the sister and kid now?” Stephen asked.

“No leads
as yet sir, sister’s in the kitchen in absolute bits, we’ve not been able to talk to her yet and the kid is with a neighbour, do you want me to try and talk to her
now
sir?”

“No, just carry on with what you we
re doing and I will talk to her after I’ve spoken to the pathologist, I assume he’s here is he?”

“Just arrived before you sir, he’s in the living room with the
er
..
body
”

“Any sign of forced entry or anything missing?” Stephen asked almost as an
afterthought
.

“No sir, to the forced entry, not sure if any things missing till we speak to the sister, but nothing obvious”

“Okay John thank you
for your
good work, we’ll catch up later” he said as he walked away in the direction of the living room.

He was p
leased that it was n
ot going to be too gory a scene, but thinking that it was an unusual cause of death, he couldn’t recall being called out to a death by suffocation before, not by a pillow anyway.

Chapter Two

Stephen
sat at his desk at the station, looking at the evidence before
him;
he had called a meeting
for
the following morning with his team to look at what had been done so far
in the investigation and what they needed to do.

He’d sent Derek and John on a door to door with immediate neighbours this evening and to try and track down and speak to the friends that she was out with.

There was not a lot they could do until they got the pathologist report in, but he knew that he would find something, there would
be no weekend leave
this weekend and those that were off had been called in.  He needed his full team to put this one to bed.

He thought about all the onlookers at the scene, the people watching curiosity etched on their faces, his mind’s eye thinking back to those faces.  Anyone of them could have been the killer, come back to look at his handy work or to get off on what he had done.

He made a note to himself to look through the notes or statements that he had asked the uniform guys to get from the bystanders if they had seen anything.

Stephen had spoken to the pathologist
on the scene and he ha
d said that she had
most certainly
been suffocated and that
the
time of death would have been approximately between the hours of 2
a.m
and 4 a.m. 

He
ha
d said
that he
wouldn’t know if there had been any sexual assault until he got her to the lab,
but there were no external bruising wh
ich sometimes can indicate
that type of attack,
but
he was not ruling it out.  He’d assured Stephen
that he would report in as soon as he had anything.

Stephen had
also spoken to the
sister;
she was extremely upset, but didn’t know much at all. 

Jane
was a single parent of a 4 year old boy and that she had babysat for her most Friday nights while she went out with the girls. 

The father of the child was a builder, he worked abroad most of the time and that he was currently in Germany.  She believed that he was expected back in about a week’s time for a
week’s holiday and
he had planned to spend that time with his son. 

Although Jane and her ex had
encountered
a volatile relationship at the time they were together, they had an amicable relationship now for the sake of the boy.

Jane hadn’t been in any other relationship as far as she knew and was not involved in anything that could have put her in danger.

There was nothing much to go on there then, he reflected, nothing much at all.

It was a mystery, Stephen thought, not something he had ever come across before.

He picked up the polythene evidence
bag and stared at the
contents for a long time.

A small white card one inch by three inch
es, it had been cut to size around two sides.  This
was the strangest piece of evidence they had, the only piece of evidence they had
at the moment
, the writing on it typed in bold capital letters in what looked like times new roman
. It had been found in her hand
:

GUESS WHO?

Who was that message for he wondered, there was something not quite right about this, it wasn’t a spontaneous murder,
and it
was
definitely
pre-meditated,
if
the perpetrator had gone to the trouble of making this card.

Someone wanted someone to know that he had done this.

Who
and
why?

Why would anyone suffocate a girl and then leave a card saying this.  Perhaps it was a message for the estranged husband, perhaps he had upset someone and this was his payback.

Or the sister, although she didn’t look as though she was hiding anything, she seemed pretty sincere and Stephen was quite good at picking up signs of people lying
.

She gave good eye contact, was not fidgety at all, nor was she sweating or in any great rush to get away, which was often the signs of people who were lying and her story, was very precise.

He picked
the phone up and rang Tanya, he had left a message on her
answering machine
to cancel this evening, but it was still early yet
and he was ready to get out of this place and have some fun.
Switch off for a while. 

He had learned over the years that you could over think and that was dangerous when investigating a case.  You could lose sight of the facts or miss something of significance.
  So sometimes it was more helpful to focus on something else for a while and go back to things with a fresh mind and a fresh eye.

He knew exactly what would do this, a passionate night with
Tanya,
sex was always something that cleared his mind for a while.

Tanya had been his girlfriend for eight months now and she was beginning to feel like a cosy pair of slippers
to him
.
He didn’t mind that,
h
e liked
i
t;
he hated
the ‘newness’ of a relationship, he got no joy from the insecurity, the anticipation or the anxieties of the initial dates.