Angels Bleed (Fallen Angels Book 1) (4 page)

3:30 am

Brilliant white light exploded from two tall arc lamps bursting into life, the monotone chatter of the diesel generators powering them pre-empting the illumination of Featherstone Hall.  Darkness was dispelled to reveal a bustle of uniformed Police Officers on various duties.  Some were staking out lines from the edge of the Hall and erecting ‘Police – Do Not Enter’ tape.  Some were chatting to their SOCO colleagues who were carrying items to the property.  Some were transporting boxes from several vehicles to the large Major Incident Unit parked up on a grassy field about a hundred metres to the front of the building, the arc lamps flanking either end of it.

The Hall itself was built in 1801 in a castellated Tudor style.  A rotund tower on the left rose beyond the height of the main building by about twenty feet and was topped with ramparts.  Fake arrow slits were visible down the side along with many small shuttered windows.  The central body of the Hall was over three storeys, the entrance flanked by two pillars that framed a large oak door which was distressed and rotting with age.  A balcony jutted out from the central structure above the oak door, supported on the pillars, the large windows leading out onto it also shuttered, along with every window in the property.

A gravel driveway, overrun with weeds and blurring with unkempt lawns at its edges meandered through woods from the left of the property to a large open expanse at the front of the house.  In the centre of this was a dilapidated fountain, an early Greek statue of Eros that was meant to be standing proud on a plinth in the middle missing its wings, arms and head, the remainder of it lichen stained.

A Range Rover rolled sedately down the drive, circling the fountain, the driver taking in the scene and the Hall before he drove up to the side of the Major Incident Unit.  The car door opened, tan brogues coming into view, followed by the Moleskin suited DCI Jeremiah Strange as he stepped out of the vehicle.  He was a tall, very slight man, his dark leathery skin especially noticeable in the sunken cheeks and around gaunt, haunted eyes.  He still sported an Afro on his head, only with age it was now a shock of grey.  Vapour wraiths escaped his mouth in the early morning chill as he blew through his hands.

PC Buglass was waiting for him outside the entrance of the Unit with a steaming cup of black coffee. ‘Chief, here’s a wake me up for you.’ Buglass said, proffering the drink.

‘Thank you son.’ Strange answered, with a slight Jamaican twang evident in his gentle timbre.  He took a huge gulp of the coffee and asked ‘Who’s managed to get their behinds out of bed so far?’

‘Saul is still here, he’s inside with Munro and Saxon.  No other Detectives yet.  Harris and Darrie have headed back to HQ with the body and the initial forensic evidence.  They should be there by now.  There are three more SOCO’s on site and they are checking over the rest of the house.  We’ve got half a dozen PC’s just securing the perimeter and Tech are outback setting up comms and IT.  There’s an Army Bomb Squad Unit on their way from Otterburn, they shouldn’t be long arriving.  That’s about it.’ briefed Buglass.

‘Not a bad turnout considering the time.’ said Strange, pleasantly surprised as he climbed the steps into the MIU, coffee in hand.  ‘I guess you are designated scribe until admin turn up.  Are you okay with that?’

Buglass shrugged. ‘It beats real work.’ he said, a cheeky look on his young, still spotty face.

The unit was decorated an industrial, lifeless grey. On the farthest, shorter wall was a bank of clean whiteboards.  Along the entire length of the back wall of the unit ran a bench loaded with computers, monitors, telephones and a percolating coffee machine.  Above these and secured to the wall was a horizontal bank of ten plasma screens.  There were windows in the front wall of the unit that looked out over the Hall.  In the middle of the room was a rectangular table around which were squeezed half a dozen chairs, three of them occupied by the DI’s, who were all drinking coffee, Munro and Saxon listening intently to Saul.

‘Morning chaps, thanks for coming out so quickly this morning, not the best start for a Monday, I know.’ He placed a hand on Saul’s shoulder as he passed, squeezing it gently. ‘And John, thanks for leading on this so far.  Like the tux by the way.  Hopefully the coffee will kick in quickly and our brains just might start working.’ he continued light heartedly as he made his way to the whiteboards.  Buglass followed him in and sat down next to Saul.

‘Right guys, the chain of command for the incident is as follows at the moment.  I am Bronze Control; Super is Silver/Gold and will be in the loop once the Video Conferencing is up to HQ.  Saul, as the first on the scene with the most information on this, are you okay to be lead Detective?’ asked Strange.  Saul nodded while drinking his coffee.  ‘Saxon, Munro you are supporting and at the moment Buglass is scribe.  We will have more support turning up soon but given the time pressures we appear to be under, I would suggest we get started.  Is everyone okay with that?’

Everyone nodded in acknowledgement, and they started, Buglass relaying details of the initial 999 call that had sparked the incident, which had come through at 11:00am the previous night.  As he spoke, DCI Strange began to jot down salient points in a timeline on one whiteboard, while mapping out relationships with questions underneath on the next.  Buglass finished his notes and then Saul brought them up to speed with the events since he arrived at the house.

‘So, the upshot is, we have an ultimatum from an unknown caller to deliver the unknown real killer of their unknown victim, to the drawing room of this house by midnight or our unknown live captive will be blown up. That is a frightening number of unknowns to discover in 24 hours.’ finished Saul, shaking his head.

‘It is, but as our ‘Unknown Caller’ points out, we have a lot of evidence already and will have more as soon as we identify the body.  So let’s do what we always do.  Get all the things we know on the table and the right resource focused on investigating the things we think, based on our collective experience, will get us a result.  I can’t promise this will be easy.  We have a person’s life at stake here but what we can’t do is panic, or procrastinate, or lose our focus, and it’s my job to make sure that we don’t.  So sup up your coffee and let’s get focused.’

‘Right, as I see it, there’s three primary lines of enquiry we need to start down.  Firstly, who is the dead person, who has been convicted of killing them and why is our ‘Unknown Caller’ so convinced they didn’t do it?  The ‘who’ bit will hopefully be incoming soon, and from there we need to try and figure out the ‘why’.  I see this as the main area of the investigation and John, I would like you to pick that up.’  Strange started.

‘Secondly, who the hell is the guy who set this elaborate honey pot up?  Does he own this Hall, is it as simple as that?  I doubt it, so if he doesn’t, then who does?  It’s empty apart from that one room, so we need door to door co-ordinated with the surrounding farms and neighbours, see if they have seen any activity here recently.  We need to be checking the data from the phone lines into the house, calls received over and above the one we managed to record the end of.  We also need to be analysing that call to see if it’s the same person as the 999 caller and if we can get any audio forensic from either of them.  Get the Tech Forensics checking out the AV setup and connectivity into that room as well.  Finding out where those feeds are coming from should help us find this guy.  Leigh, could you pick that up please?’ he asked DI Saxon.

‘On it Chief!‘ she said, obvious enthusiasm in her animated response.

‘Thirdly, we have an unidentified person whose life is at risk in all of this.  Have we had any missing person’s calls in the last 24 hours from around this area?  We might need to look back further than that.  See if the Tech Forensics can glean any more from the feed into that crate.  Any distinguishing features on the little we can see of the person that might help identify them.  Mick, just you left, are you okay with that?’  Strange finished.

‘It’s going to be like finding piss in the ocean, but yes, I’m on it.’ DI Munro moaned, a surly look on his haggard face.

‘Start with finding piss in the puddle, then the pond, then the lake before you start on the ocean.  You know it’s more likely to be a local, so let’s maintain that focus.’  Strange firmly directed.

‘Right, do we all know what we are doing?’ asked Strange.  Nods of affirmation were forthcoming. ‘Leigh, Mick, you can crack on.  Buglass could you give Leigh a hand organising the door to door?  John, you wait until we hear from HQ.  We will catch up at 06:30 hours either here or on the conference bridge.  We have 21 hours to find a killer, or to stop a killer.  So let’s get going.’   

Saxon was straight up, barking instructions to Buglass immediately as they left.  Munro slouched out of his seat lethargically, taking time to finish off his coffee before buttoning up his overcoat and leaving. Strange sat down next to Saul at the table. 

‘How are you doing John? I know you’ve been up a while but you are looking troubled.  Personal or Professional?’ asked Strange empathetically.

Saul had a nonplussed expression on his face for a second before he answered, a little tersely.  ‘Professional of course.’

Strange stared Saul out for a few seconds, a wry smile spreading over his face, shaking his head slightly as he said. ‘Okay, if you don’t want to discuss what you are doing here dressed up to the nines, on your wedding anniversary, when you should be with your wife, that is entirely your own business.  If you don’t want to tell me why you asked to be on call tonight, I’m not going to push it.  I am here to listen when you are ready to talk.  So, professionally, what’s up?’

‘He wanted to attract
my
attention.  He was very particular about wanting
me
to investigate this.  I’m wracking my brains to think if I recognise the voice or if there’s anyone I’ve dealt with in the recent past who would have hatched this.  I can’t think of anyone at the moment and that troubles me.’  Saul paused and let out an ironic laugh, then continued, ‘This is professional but someone is trying to make it personal and I don’t understand why.  How the hell would he know it would be me turning up to investigate tonight?  How does he know what I am like as a Detective and why has that got any relevance?’

‘Keep thinking those things, as we get more facts on the table, run those questions past each and every bit of information we gather.  He has the advantage, for now, but he is right on one thing, you are an excellent detective.  Recognise your blindside John and make sure he’s not trying to exploit it.  Professional and Personal can never, ever be kept totally separate.  No matter how hard you try, they bleed into one another.  Just think on that.’ advised Strange.

Just then, a low thrum burst from the bank of plasma’s behind them a second before two of them powered on, one displaying the ruddy hue of Darrie stood behind the shimmering silver of an autopsy bench, his green gloved hands delving into the open chested cadaver of their John Doe.  The second screen showed an empty office with a small sign saying Path Lab on the wall behind a desk.

‘Georgie, how’s it hanging my friend? Have you got any news for us yet?’ asked Strange, turning in his seat to face the screens.

‘Jerry!  To the left you cheeky sod, always to the left.  It’s not often you are out of your boudoir and away from your harem of honeys this early in the day.’  Darrie retorted jovially.

‘They be waiting for me, gives me a break to recover, my body’s not as young as my mind thinks it is.  Do we know who he is yet?’ Strange responded, entertaining the banter.

‘I think Harris should be along any minute with some news, he’s just running the DNA now.  What I can tell you is that our JD had his heart ripped out.  If you look along the line of the Y incision, you can see the uniformity of the cut.’ he started, taking his hands out of the chest and pointing to the edge of the skin, moving up from the stomach. ‘But when you get to this area of the chest, quite literally the skin has been ripped open.  You can see the tear.  The ribs around the cavity have been snapped outwards, lung pushed to one side, and all that’s left of where the heart should be are the remaining ends of riven arteries.  It’s some ferocious effort that’s been exerted to do this.  Ripping skin is not an easy thing to do.’

Harris sidled into view on the second screen, consciously positioning himself in front of the camera at his end.  ‘Can you see me?’  He asked, squinting into his monitor.

‘Yes, we can Ian.  What’s the news?  Have you got a match yet?’ asked Strange.

‘We have, and you aren’t going to like it.  Our JD is one Michael Colin Angus.  Born 14
th
September 1989.  Died, or should I say murdered on the 1
st
January 2012 at the age of twenty two by his mother’s hand in her flat on the Crombie Estate, Edinburgh.’  divulged Harris.