Monument to Murder (38 page)

T
HE DEAD PATIENT
was handsome, late twenties, early thirties. Only his head was visible. Dr Valerie Armstrong got a whiff of expensive aftershave as she said a silent prayer for him. The man had obviously looked after himself. His skin was perfect, his eyebrows waxed. He had long dark lashes, a straight nose and strong jawline. There was no pillow on the trolley, so his head was tilted back slightly, his mouth open as if inviting a kiss. What an absolute tragedy, that someone so young should die on a hospital trolley, unnoticed in the midst of all the frantic activity of A & E.

Wondering whether he was a family man, her eyes shifted from the face to the blue blanket that covered his body. It was then that she saw the blood, now a dark brown where it had dried out in the high temperature of the corridor, staining the open weave around the abdominal area. A sob left her throat as she pulled back the cover and saw that the dead man’s elbows were bent, his hands resting
on his stomach, a wedding band on his left ring finger –
his only finger.
Every other digit was missing, including both thumbs; not crushed or ripped off, as she would have expected had he lost them in an accident, but severed with a smooth blade. As the blanket fell from her hand she saw that more blood had pooled on the sheet either side of his torso, presumably from an injury to his back.

Valerie ran to reception and made an urgent call.

T
HIRTY MINUTES LATER
, argumentative voices reached her as the medical director arrived in A & E, followed by the duty lead consultant. For the next few minutes, pointed questions were asked. The director was furious on two counts. One: because he’d been hauled out of bed. Two: because the consultant hadn’t run her shift properly. As he threw his weight around, she bit back, citing understaffing and pressure in the department, shifting responsibility to him. Neither gave a thought to the identity of the dead man or how long he’d been there.

‘Stop!’ Valerie glared at them both.

The director bristled. ‘Excuse me?’

The SHO flicked her eyes toward the entrance where a couple assisting a wheelchair patient were calling for help. Ignoring them, the director asked her to cover up the corpse.

‘Or better still,’ he suggested, ‘move him out of sight to one of the side wards.’

Valerie refused point-blank. ‘This is a police matter, we can’t move him.’

‘I insist!’ the director whispered through gritted teeth. ‘We can’t possibly leave—’

‘I agree with Valerie,’ the consultant cut him off. Reminding him she was still in charge of the unit, she nodded to the receptionist. ‘Make the call, Louise.’

As the girl hurried back to her desk, Valerie beckoned a porter. ‘Get some screens over here. And see to it no one goes near the body.’

I
T TOOK THE
police less than five minutes to arrive. A male sergeant and female colleague, both in uniform, walked through the door with radios squawking. Ushering them to a side room where they could talk without interruption, Valerie explained the situation. Even in her head, it sounded incredible. It was painfully obvious that the officers were unimpressed. Whether that was because, like her, their shift was almost at an end and they could do without the hassle of staying on duty, she wasn’t able to gauge. And, if it was, who could blame them?

The senior officer perched on the edge of the desk, asking her to repeat her account one more time. This time around, his colleague took notes in her pocket book. But it wasn’t long before Valerie ran out of words. Much as she appreciated the importance of getting every detail straight, she could only tell them what she knew.

‘I saw nothing,’ she said. ‘Right up until the moment I spotted him lying in the corridor.’

‘Well, someone must have,’ the sergeant said, an accusation almost. ‘The way you described his injuries, Mystery Man didn’t walk in unaided, did he?’

‘No, I don’t suppose he did.’

‘So what’s the sketch? Any idea how he managed to pull it off?’

Valerie’s eyes found highly polished lino. She had no theories – at least, none that made any sense, none she cared to share. She’d just completed a marathon shift and was due for another in a matter of hours. All she wanted was to go home, crawl into her bed and sleep. She’d done nothing wrong and had no reason whatsoever to feel guilty. So why did she? The sergeant’s hard eyes weren’t helping.

A female voice pulled her back into the room.

‘Doctor?’ The PC stopped scribbling. ‘The sergeant asked you a question.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Valerie shook her head, tried to focus. ‘As I said, I have no idea how he got here, or how he came to be missed. We were extremely busy—’

‘How about when he was found?’ the sergeant asked. ‘Do you have any ideas on that score?’

‘That I can tell you. It was almost five-thirty. One of the admin staff asked me how long before I went off shift and I checked my watch. When I discovered he was dead, I put in a call and questioned the triage team myself while I was waiting for a response. It seems he wasn’t assessed on arrival by any of the nurses on duty. I realize you’ll also want to talk to them.’

‘Except you didn’t call us at five-thirty, did you?’ he said.

‘Well, no, not personally.’

‘My information is that your receptionist called it in some time after six.’

‘That’s correct. But I’d reported the matter to the medical director. It’s procedure.’

‘Maybe a nurse went home,’ the female officer suggested. ‘Forgot to log the patient in?’

‘I doubt that,’ Valerie said.

‘It happens, surely?’ The sergeant eyed her sceptically. ‘Someone goes sick . . . they rush off without finishing what they’re doing. Not that the hospital trust would ever admit to such a thing, but you and I know different, don’t we? Mistakes happen in all walks of life – no need for a cover-up.’

‘Cover-up? If you’re suggesting—’

‘I’m not making allegations, Doctor – it’s far too early for that.
This unexplained sudden death isn’t a matter my colleague and I can handle on our own. We’ll have to pass it upstairs, consult with the Murder Investigation Team. Until they arrive, I must ask everyone to remain in the building until further notice. And I’ll need the names of everyone who was on duty at the time.’

Valerie offered no argument. The sergeant had a point, she supposed. As a health professional tasked with the job of saving lives, she wasn’t happy about a patient in critical condition being left unattended in a corridor. And she was all too aware that the medical director would pass the buck in her direction if he thought he could get away with it. He’d do so in a flash if it would save his own skin.

The police sergeant stood up. ‘Can you take us to the body now, please?’

Valerie led the way across A & E. The department was dark, the lights dimmed. At the request of the police, it had already been closed down and emergency admissions temporarily redirected to another entrance.

She rounded the screen that concealed the trolley from view and turned to face the two officers. From the glances they exchanged on catching sight of the victim, it was obvious he was no stranger to them.

O
N THE
S
ILVERLINK
Industrial Estate, DCI Kate Daniels had just finished overseeing a delicate and ghastly operation. Having called upon the Fire Service to jack up the Mercedes to enable crime-scene investigators to photograph her victim in situ, she’d looked on as the body was extricated from the underside of the vehicle
and handed over to mortuary staff for transfer to Newcastle’s city morgue.

The body-bag was zipped up, laid on a stretcher and loaded into a black van. Hank Gormley waved it forward, instructing a uniformed colleague to follow in a panda car. It was important to preserve continuity until the cadaver was in the care of Tim Stanton, who was standing by to carry out an urgent post-mortem. Police tape and cones were lifted, allowing the vehicles through inner and outer cordons, where they were joined by a Traffic car, its driver engaging blues and twos to ease the journey.

As the mini-convoy disappeared, Kate turned to face Hank.

‘What was the name of our witness?’ she asked.

‘David Prentice. Forty-eight-year-old widower. No form. Lives on Benton Park Road. Father of two, grandfather of four.’ He pointed to a sign behind them:
JMR Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Services
. ‘He’s in there, waiting for you.’

Kate found the man at his desk in the security office, hands cupped round a mug of sweet tea, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips. He stubbed it out and stood up as she walked in. It was as if the room was shrouded in fog. Bizarrely, it had no air conditioning. Without asking permission, the DCI opened the window to let the smoke out. Then she sat down, taking the weight off her aching feet. The man looked grey. Was it any wonder? She wasn’t feeling too hot herself.

‘I’m DCI Kate Daniels. Are you up to answering questions, sir?’

‘To be honest, I’d rather go home. I’m feeling a bit shaky.’

‘That’s entirely understandable. Finding a body must have been harrowing for you, especially in the dead of night.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

He was a dead ringer for Kate’s old guv’nor who was now the
head of CID; a little younger perhaps, but the face was the same shape, with a generous mouth and greying hair at his temples. They could’ve been brothers, except Prentice was quaking in his uniformed boots and Detective Chief Superintendent Bright would never do that, no matter how unpleasant the circumstances. Then again, the security guard had probably never seen so much as an angry dog in his whole career, much less had to deal with one.

‘I won’t keep you long, I promise.’ Kate gave a smile of encouragement. ‘The sooner we get it over with, the sooner you can go home to your bed. It would help if you could tell me everything you know, a blow-by-blow account of your movements since you came on duty, including how and when you discovered the body. It’s very important to establish what happened here so I can start looking for those responsible.’

Prentice took a deep breath. ‘I started at ten o’clock. It was a normal, boring shift until I noticed the van a few minutes before five, after leaving the office for a moment or two.’

‘Is that allowed?’ Kate asked.

‘It was that or piss in a bucket. Forgive the language, I—’

‘Needs must, eh?’ Another smile. Kate pointed at a hard-backed ledger on his desk. ‘Is that your duty log?’

He nodded.

‘May I see it please?’

Prentice pushed it towards her. He looked on as she opened it up and turned to the relevant page. The writing was neat but so small she was forced to use her reading specs. Scanning the entries, she noted that he’d made a tour of the perimeter fence every hour throughout the night until four a.m. The five o’clock patrol remained blank.

Picking up on her concern, Prentice was at pains to point out
that he hadn’t completed that circuit because he was too busy investigating the mystery van.

‘That’s when you called us?’

Sweating profusely, he nodded.

Kate shifted her attention from the man to a desk littered with paraphernalia: a half-completed crossword, an Open University pamphlet, a framed photograph of four grinning schoolboys she assumed were his grandchildren, a few jottings on a notepad and some literature on photography.

Oh God!

Along with a feeling of déjà vu, a young woman appeared in Kate’s head: an amateur photographer she’d come across in a previous case who’d tried to cash in by selling images of a dead man to the press. That was the way things were these days; everyone carried a camera in their pocket, the means with which to capture a moment in time, no matter how miserable. People saw it as fair game. Images that sold newspapers were highly prized. Sadly, that particular photographer had paid the ultimate price, silenced for good by someone who didn’t want their face made public.

‘Keen photographer, are you sir?’ Kate took in an enthusiastic nod. ‘Take any snaps while you were outside? Because, if you did, I’d like the film and the camera.’

‘I don’t have one with me.’

‘Mobile phone?’

‘I didn’t take any pictures.’

‘That’s fine.’ Kate sent a warning shot across the desk. ‘I just need to be sure. The incident I’m investigating is not one that should end up in the public domain. If that were to happen, you should understand that there would be consequences.’

‘Check it if you don’t believe me.’ He pushed his mobile across the desk. ‘There’s nothing on it, I swear.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

Thanking her, Prentice shuddered as if something with more than two legs had walked across his skin. ‘To be honest, I was so spooked when I realized what I’d found that I bolted back here. I dialled 999 in case he was, y’know, still alive. It never occurred to me to get my camera out. I’m no ghoul, Inspector.’ He paused for thought. ‘Not that I thought he could be – alive, I mean. But I’m no doctor, am I? You hear about people surviving terrible accidents.’

He hadn’t been told.

Kate tried to find the right words with which to convey the unpalatable truth. ‘Mr Prentice, I’m not here about a terrible accident. This is a clear-cut case of murder. As despicable as it sounds, what you witnessed tonight was a deliberate act.’

‘What?’ He looked horrified.

‘I’m afraid so. I’m sure you’ll appreciate how serious that is and why I need your full cooperation.’ Unfortunately, Kate was destined not to get it.

Prentice immediately clammed up, floored by the realization that whoever she was after knew where he worked and when they could find him alone on the premises. Having seen what they were capable of, he had no doubt they would silence a witness without a second thought.

MARI HANNAH
, the award-winning author of three novels featuring detective Kate Daniels, was born in London and moved north as a child. Her career as a probation officer was cut short when she was injured while on duty, and thereafter she spent several years as a film/television screenwriter. She now lives in Northumberland with her partner, an ex-murder detective. She was the winner of the 2010 Northern Writers’ Award and the 2013 Polari First Book Prize and longlisted for the CWA 2014 Dagger in the Library Award. Recently the Kate Daniels series was optioned for television in the UK.

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