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pm 14th April 2014
He took a sip of coffee and sat back in his chair. “Do we have any biscuits?” he asked. Before Lizzie could respond, he called out: “Taffy! Taffy! Are there any biscuits left in the tin?”
“I think we’ve got custard creams, Boss. I’ll get you some,” the Welshman replied looking up from his desk. Thurstan looked back at Lizzie, “Sorry, Liz, where were we? Yes! What else have we got?”
She looked down at her notes, a little smile playing across her lips. “We have, as yet, an unidentified male, approximately 30 years of age. No marks or scars. No identity documents, no cards, thirty pounds in cash, set of keys to a Ford something we haven’t yet found and a set of house keys for somewhere or other. Fingerprints have been taken and are being checked, but at the moment it would seem he’s never come to the attention of the Police before, at least not in this country. He had several bullet wounds; an entrance and exit wound to his right calf, indicating that particular shot came low from his right side, one to the lower back and the last to his upper left back which, I’m informed, most probably penetrated the heart before exiting. All to be confirmed by the post mortem, which will be carried out this afternoon.
“We’ve four spent cases, so the hole in the top left-hand shoulder of his jacket was probably caused by the fourth bullet; we’re still searching for that. Initial indications from the guys at Firearms Training are they’re nine millimetre, possibly Russian or Bulgarian because they appear to have Cyrillic letters on the base. Fingerprints have taken a look, but it’s negative there I’m afraid. They’re clean. Dead man’s DNA samples are being processed so there may be something to come back from them, but it could take a while. The knife found was his as well, fingerprints confirm, and we’re getting a DNA profile done from the blood that’s on it. Again, it could take some time.” She paused, adding, “Oh, and the suspect’s pants. I showed the Firearms guys the camera footage and one of them said they thought the pants he was wearing were probably Russian birch pattern camouflage. It seems some of them are into that sort of thing. He was pretty certain. Said you couldn’t mistake it, it’s so distinctive.” She laid her notes flat on her knees and looked at Thurstan expectantly.
He rubbed his chin, thoughtfully.
“Any luck with finding CCTV from further afield?”
“Still being sorted, but I’ll chase it up,” she replied quietly.
“Four custard creams enough, Boss? I can get you more if you want.” Taffy laid the saucer cradling the biscuits on the desk. “Actually, Sarge, I can update you on one of those matters. Chewbacca located something from one of the traffic cameras at Leeds Street, junction with Old Hall. Dark coloured Vauxhall Astra, old model, W plate, owner registered in Exeter, shows our suspect getting out and walking down Old Hall.”
Thurstan leaned forward as he dunked a custard cream into his coffee. “And have we sent someone round to the owner’s yet?”
“Sorted, Boss,” Taffy replied, watching Thurstan holding his wet biscuit. “Chewy had the local uniforms pop round and it seems the car’s not been off the drive for days. Owner’s had the engine in bits in his garage.” He hesitated. “I’d eat that pretty quick if I was you, Boss. They’ve been in the tin for a while.”
Thurstan looked gloomily into his cup as he realised the tensile strength of a dunked biscuit had a direct relationship to its freshness. Lizzie leant forward and handed him some clean tissues from her bag.
“Do you want another drink, Boss? Taffy enquired. “I can get you one, no problem.”
Thurstan busily mopped up the liquid which had cascaded onto the desk as one half of the custard cream had somersaulted into the cup. “No, it’ll be fine, makes the last mouthful more interesting.” He looked up. “Thanks for that information Taffy and the biscuits.”
When he’d gone, Lizzie stood up and took the wet tissues from Thurstan’s hand, used a clean one to round up the last few smears, and dropped them in the waste paper basket. She sat down again. “I’ve got some of the staff out looking for any CCTV from the city, now we know the route our female victim took when her boyfriend dumped her out of the car after their domestic. Hopefully, we’ll know soon, roughly, where she attracted the attention of our dead guy.”
“Great stuff,” Thurstan replied. “So, to recap, we have a dead sex attacker who’s been killed with, possibly, Russian bullets from, possibly, a Russian gun by a man wearing, possibly, Russian pants. The gun fired, in the words of our victim-witness, sounded like ...what did she say they were called?”
“Clackers,” Liz responded.
“Clackers! That’s right. So, sounded like Clackers, which makes me think silencer. Now, judging by our shooter’s distinctive patterned trousers he either doesn’t mind being noticed or he wants to be. This is a man who just happened to be walking past whilst armed to the teeth, having been dropped off at the end of the street from a car on false plates.”
He sat back in his chair and ran his hand pensively across his mouth several times. “I’m pretty certain from the CCTV he was just strolling past on the way to somewhere else and at that time of night my gut feeling says the place was bed. So, he gets involved in an unplanned incident. But why the Russian thing? What was he doing or going to do that he or they wanted to blame on the Russians? Do we have a Russian problem?”
“Not that I know of, Boss, but I’ll speak to someone in SB, see if they can tell us.”
“Thanks. I know the Met have issues there. I’ll speak to Chalkie when he comes in and you speak to SB. In the meantime, have a few of the staff check the hotels for any obvious Russian or Eastern European names. In fact, have Gandalph do it. He’s built up a few contacts in that department.”
He looked at Lizzie. God, you’re beautiful, he suddenly thought and equally suddenly banished it from his head. He looked at her again. There was an awkward silence. “Right,” he said, “Well, erm ... I’ve got nothing else I can think of. We good?”
She smiled at him and nodded. “We’re good.”