Chapter 32
The track ran alongside the back of the houses, domestic fencing on one side, an elongated copse and the railway line on the other. Two detectives picked their way along it, heading for the bright lights and white suits.
“Watch out for the dog shit, Degs.” Sammy steered the DI to the left. “I thought the Boss was on call tonight?”
“He was but we swapped. Mutually beneficial, he said, although I have my doubts. I get to watch the wife’s sister in the Pirates of Penzance and he gets a romantic night out. Or in. Maybe both if he’s lucky.”
“Really, who would that be with?”
“Can’t say but just don’t call her Betty.”
Sammy gave him a quizzical glance.
They’d reached the scene. A large white suit approached and called over his shoulder, “Case solved guys, the MIT’s here at last!”
Degsy smiled. “Slim, if we’d got here any sooner we’d have just been watching you squeeze into that suit and fuck about with the generators.”
Slim laughed. “But now you’ll never know, Degsy.”
A female CSI gave him two packages. “Thanks, Doris. Here, put these on,” he said and handed them to Sammy and Degs. A short while later they stepped under the cordon tape.
Several fluorescent orange strips fluttered gently from a length of barbed wire strung out between a non-working lamp post and a tree opposite. Below it and slightly beyond lay the body of a teenage male in a pool of muddy blood, a deep gash travelled from one side of his throat to the other. Twenty feet further on a mini motorcycle protruded from a bush.
“Fairly self-explanatory,” Slim commented.
The DI glanced up at the shattered lamp. “Old or new?”
“Old. No significant glass traces and one of the neighbours said it’s been out for six months, at least.” Slim turned and signed something an assistant brought him.
“FME?”
“Been and gone. You need to get up earlier.”
Degsy looked at Sammy. “Anything from Area?”
“Yeah, I spoke to a couple of local bobbies before you got here. There’s been a problem with youths on motorbikes razzing up and down here for a while now, usually the bigger ones they said.”
Degsy studied the wire. “That comes to around my waist height so I’d say there’s a possibility this wasn’t entirely what was intended.”
Sammy nodded agreement. “Yeah, a normal bike and it would have taken them out by the handlebars, waist or chest.” He chuckled, “Just as well he didn’t waste his money on a helmet.”
A ‘blink and you missed it’ smile flitted across Degsy’s lips. “Anyone laid claim to the body yet, Slim?”
“Not that I know. We’ve had a woman from that house over there say she thought he was one of the ringleaders of a local gang. She’s seen him out and about and thinks they called him Boggo, but I may have misheard that.”
“Who called it in?”
His DS replied, “Anonymous, from a payphone outside the chippy, on the parade around the corner.”
“Right, let’s get someone round there and secure any CCTV. Slim, can you have the call box dusted?” He saw the look on his face. “I know it seems rather pointless given the amount of traffic it’s probably had but, you never know, it could be useful.” A disarming smile.
He stared at the dark shadow of the house immediately behind the scene. “Can we light that up?”
“Dragon lamp, someone! Please,” Slim called.
The powerful lamp lit up the garden and rear of the building. The door and windows were covered in plywood boarding.
Sammy returned his radio to his pocket. “That CCTV. I asked one of the bobbies to check it out before you arrived. He’s just confirmed it’s been recovered.”
The DI smiled. “Nice one. Ok, let’s take a look at the front of this house before we leave, just to make sure there’s no one still living there, then we can speak to the neighbours on either side at the same time. Bit too late for anything else tonight. We’ll stop off at the incident trailer, as well, sort out the fine detail and make arrangements for ‘house to house’ to set up first thing.”