I walked into DCI David Gaylor’s office, where Bill had already taken root.
‘Ah, Graham. Thanks so much for popping in,’ joked Bill.
David was in his familiar focused murder mode. He was our boss, but was also a hugely experienced detective with a rapier mind. His hypotheses and orders would come thick and fast when he was in this zone and woe betide us if we missed anything.
‘Thanks, Graham. I think the best thing is to get Mick Burkinshaw and Dave Corcoran in here to bring us up to speed first hand rather than me tell you,’ he said.
I still had only the very basics that Bill had delighted in passing on in that phone call, which now seemed hours ago.
‘Burky, Corky, DCI’s office now,’ bellowed Bill with a feigned military bark.
David and I looked at each other and lifted our eyebrows, recognizing we were in the presence of a troublesome child who was beyond help. Burky’s jocular response was less restrained, typical of the Yorkshireman.
‘Fuck off, Bill. You are nothing without us. In fact you are nothing full stop and the boss only called Graham in because he wanted some brains at DS level.’
As Bill was about to counter, David raised his hand and reminded us, ‘Gents, there will be plenty of time for Bill-bashing later. For now we have a body to find and a murder to solve. Now go through for Graham’s benefit what has happened this afternoon.’
Mick and Dave were two of the most experienced detectives we had. DC Dave Corcoran was a loveable rugged Irishman whose life revolved around greyhounds, Guinness and horse racing.
The pair couldn’t have been better chosen to start this enquiry. Both detectives had good old-fashioned copper’s noses, enabling them to read people and situations as if words on a page. Grace uses body language to detect liars. The eyes go left or right when a person lies. It’s not conclusive but it is a good signal that something is amiss. Spotting and taking notice of anomalies is an essential ability for detectives. As Grace grapples with a long-running enquiry in Dead Man’s Grip, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s quote is foremost in his thoughts: ‘A precise and intelligent recognition of minor differences is what is required of a good detective.’ Mick and Dave were good detectives.
I had worked with them for a couple of years and felt privileged and reassured in equal measures that it was they who were about to brief me.
‘Now then,’ started Mick. ‘About one thirty today a local drunk by the name of Jeff Mighell called the switchboard and told the operator he had some information about a body. He was a bit pissed and slurring but thank God the call taker stuck with him. He said that the other day, he couldn’t be sure when, he was chatting to a girl called Jenny Shaw. She’s seventeen and lives with her boyfriend Reg Connolly in a flat at the top end of Hove. I take it you know these three?’
We all nodded. None of us was surprised that this mystery had a cast of very familiar characters.
Jeff was typical of so many in Brighton and Hove and could often be found in our cells sobering up. He was a sorry character who was a bit of a joke in the area.
The city had a huge problem with alcohol. It’s a tourist destination, a stag and hen party favourite, and had a disproportionate number of pubs and off-licences together with a hard core of street drinkers. Alcohol-related deaths of men in the city were running at about 22 per 100,000 people, which was almost twice the rate for the whole of England, and nearly two and a half times the south-east average. That’s a lot of lives lost to booze. Add to that the 32 per 100,000 lost to drugs in the city and the problem with substance misuse starts to become clear.
Drunks were part of the landscape, whether they are begging, fighting or collapsed in the street. Like so many, though, in his more lucid moments Jeff had a heart of gold and hated himself for his drunken lifestyle.
Reg was a drunk too, but with a nasty streak. Odd, as he came from a very close and proud family. He’d migrated to the city from the north west of England and was into drugs, petty crime and beating up his young girlfriend. Reg stole and scammed his way through life and heaven help anyone, including the police, who tried to stop him.
Jenny, on the other hand, was a vulnerable young girl who, despite coming from a big and equally close local family, had been allowed to make her own decisions, her own way in life, far too soon. Poorly educated and with no effective role models, she moved in with her thug of a boyfriend with all the danger that entailed.
The police had been called to their flat several times following disputes between the two but rarely were we able to persuade Jenny to end their relationship or to keep Reg away for anything more than a few days.
‘They were by the shops just round the corner,’ Burky continued. ‘Jeff said that she was really upset. Not unusual apparently as it’s common knowledge that Reg knocks her about but this seemed worse. He says she burst into tears and threw her arms round him.’
‘Bloody hell, she must have been desperate from what I can remember of Jeff,’ interjected Bill.
Ignoring him, Burky continued. ‘So he asked her what’s up and she said, “Come round to the flat. I’ll show you.” As they arrived Jeff asked her if Reg would mind, as he had beaten him up before. Jenny just stayed silent as she opened the door. She didn’t go in but pointed to the cupboard just to the left. He squeezed past her and peered in.
‘Well, there slumped inside with a gaping hole in his chest, blood crusting all around it, was Reg. Lifeless. Jeff couldn’t work out how long he might have been there but he knew he was dead. He says there were blood and drag marks all around and down the hallway towards the lounge. He says he was too scared to go in any further.
‘He said he gagged, turned to Jenny and said, “What the fuck?” She apparently was shaking and bawling her eyes out but managed to blurt out, “I’d had enough of his beatings, Jeff. He was going to kill me. I stabbed him when he was asleep. I had to but I am so scared. I’m going to go to prison, aren’t I?” So, helpful as ever, Jeff just told her he wanted nothing to do with it and turned and ran. He has been thinking of nothing else since so he decided eventually he had to call us.’
We were all hooked, listening intently and scratching all the gory details in our blue A4 investigators’ notebooks. None of us wanted to be the one to forget a critical nugget.
Dave Corcoran took up the story. ‘So, thanks to the experience and judgement of the call handler, she didn’t dismiss Jeff as some rambling drunk. She had a gut feeling that there was something in this so she called the CID office and Burky and I went out to find Jeff. It wasn’t hard. We got him out of the pub and sat him in the car. He was pissed but basically repeated what he had told the operator. So we brought him back here for a statement and went straight up to Jenny’s.’
Between them Burky and Corky described what they found.
As Jenny opened the door she’d had the look of the frightened little girl she was. Without naming their source, they gently explained what they had been told. She said nothing but meekly allowed them in.
The flat was filthy — the sort of place, we say, where you need to wipe your feet on the way out. However, a wall of bleach fumes hit them The surgical cleanliness of the cupboard was in stark contrast to the rest of the squalor. They noticed a body-shaped outline on the floor. That, together with the absence of a bed convinced them Jeff was right. The missing piece, however, was a body.
A dead body with a knife in its chest is pretty easy to call as a murder. You know what you’ve got and there is an obvious starting point. No body, a silent, frightened girl and the word of a drunk makes that decision less clear-cut. However, Burky and Corky both knew you can always step back from declaring an incident a murder but you can rarely make up ground if you don’t.