Coming, Ready or Not (D.S. Hunter Kerr Book 4) (3 page)

She relaxed her frown
, but still held Hunter’s gaze. ‘But a stabbing?’

He acknowledged the question she
had raised with a solitary nod. He knew where she was coming from. He said, ‘Believe me when I say that Mike’s well over the attack. This is just what he needs. He’s been chewing at my ear for the past week to give him the next job in.’

‘
Okay, your call, Hunter, but just keep a close eye on him.’

‘
Sure will.’ He dug around in his coat pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry. Scrolling down his contacts he hit his team member’s number. It rang for a good ten seconds and then he heard a tired voice respond with a drawn out ‘Hello.’

‘
Good morning,’ Hunter cheerfully exaggerated, ‘This is your early morning call.’ He paused for a brief second and then continued, ‘Get your arse out of bed, Mister Sampson, you’ve got yourself a murder to deal with.’ He gave him the address and then disconnected the call.

Dawn Leggate set off back down the
narrow passageway, ‘Now let’s see if we can track down this night detective and see what we’ve got.’

Whil
e SIO Dawn Leggate, DC Mike Sampson and the night detective huddled together at the front of number 34, determining the high-priorities, as well as overseeing the work of the small forensics team and construction of a tent against the back door of the premises to act as a sterile barrier, Hunter trawled the street to track down the policewoman who had rendered first aid in her attempt to save the life of Gemma Cooke. He found her in a house opposite number 34 nursing a mug of tea. Two of her colleagues were alongside, together with the Paramedics who had attended. The elderly lady who owned the house appeared to have had opened up her home to provide refreshment for the emergency services.

Despite being invited in and offered a cup
of tea, Hunter remained on the doorstep and gratefully declined the offer, stating that he needed to have a word with the policewoman.

The very young-looking, dark-haired girl
engaged his gaze and returned a wan smile. Then she set down her cup on the kitchen work surface and followed Hunter out of the house. She fell in beside him as he walked back to his car.

In a calm reassuring voice Hunter asked her name.

‘Nicki Wileman,’ she replied and didn’t stop there. In a voice that was brittle and nervous she added that she had only been in the job eighteen months. Hardly stopping to draw breath she told him her previous job was as a pool lifeguard, well versed and trained in first aid, and the use of CPR, but this was the first time in a real life-threatening situation she had used it. ‘I’ll never forget this,’ she said, shaking her head.

As he neared his Audi
, Hunter aimed his key fob and popped the locks. He went round to the front passenger side and opened up the door for the young policewoman. As she lowered herself into the seat he rested a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Nicki, I can say from experience that in this job there’ll always be some things that stay with you, but those memories will fade over time and I can assure you that they’ll make you a much stronger person.’

He closed
her door and went round to his own side. He got in, pushed his seat back as far as it would go and stretched out his legs. ‘As you were one of the first officers on scene I need to ask you a few questions regarding your actions, Nicki. Do you feel up to this?’

She glanced towards him.
Her face was very pale. She gave a quick nod, then turned away and set her gaze out through the windscreen somewhere along the road in front.

Hunter took out
a small notepad and pen from his inside jacket pocket. As he opened the pad he gathered his thoughts, for even though Nicki Wileman was a policewoman, trained and practised to recall every detail of an incident for evidential purposes, he still needed to treat her as a key witness. And his own detective training determined that he should only lead with open questions and then allow plenty of time for her to answer. He said, ‘I know everything would have been happening very quickly because of the nature of the call but tell me everything you did and saw as you turned onto this street.’

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
‘We were the first car here.’ She expanded her answer by adding that she was the passenger in the response car, which was being driven by her colleague, PC Kyle Stevens.

‘
Did you see anyone in the street?’

She seemed to think about the question for a few seconds and then answered,
‘Only the neighbour. Gemma’s next door neighbour. She was standing by the alleyway and told us it was her who’d made the three-nines call.’

‘
What else did she say?’

‘
That she’d been woken up by this shouting and banging noise, and had got up, and looked out of her front window, and seen Gemma’s boyfriend, Adam, come running out from the alley and run off towards the industrial estate.’

‘
She’s absolutely sure it was Adam?’

Nicki nodded.
‘Well that’s what she said to us. That’s what we told DC Stapleton. He went round to talk to her. Have you spoken with him?’

Hunter told Nicki that the night-duty detective was currently with his boss going through everything he
’d gathered from the neighbour.

‘
Had the neighbour been in Gemma’s house before you got here?’

She shook her head.
‘No, she said she’d been round the back, but she saw that the door had been bashed in. She said she’d called out Gemma’s name, but when she hadn’t answered back she’d got scared and come straight back to the front to wait for us.’

‘
What did you do then?’

‘
Me and Kyle when straight round to the back and that’s when we found her – in the kitchen.’

‘
Gemma?’

‘
Yeah. She was lying next to the sink. There was blood everywhere and the knife was sticking out of her chest.’

‘
What did you do then?’

‘
I could hear her moaning. She was still alive and I went straight to her. You’ve seen how narrow the kitchen is haven’t you. I couldn’t get to her properly so I asked Kyle to give me a hand. We had to move her around a bit so I could get to her head, but there was nothing I could do.’

Hunter saw Nicki
’s eyes glass over.

She gulped.
‘I couldn’t do CPR or anything because of the knife in her chest, I raised her head to try and help her breathe, but then blood started gushing from her neck. I think her throat had been cut.’ She paused and gulped again. ‘Her throat had been cut. I just couldn’t do anything. Just tried to make her as comfortable as best I could. Told her the ambulance was on its way and to hang on. The paramedics got here pretty quick but I think she was already gone when they worked on her. She died in my arms and I couldn’t do anything about it.’ With the back of her hand she dabbed away a tear. Her face had a pained look.

‘
Nobody could have done anything for her, Nicki. You did the best you could under the circumstances.’ For a moment his thoughts drifted away. Nicki’s last sentence had pricked his conscience. The image of Gemma’s bloodied body scurried into his inner vision and he wondered what her final thoughts would have been. Had this brave young policewoman, sitting next to him, brought Gemma any comfort in her final dying moments or had she just succumbed to the inevitable.

He shook himself out of his reverie and morphed his
thoughts back to the job in hand. ‘Did she say anything before she died? Did she manage to say who’d done this to her?’

The policewoman shook her head.
‘No she was beyond that.’

Hunter set his notepad down on top of the dashboard and turned to her.
‘You’ve done great Nicki. Now we need to get it down in a statement while it’s still fresh in your mind.’

It was after 6.00 a.m. before Hunter finished Nicki Wileman’s statement. While she read what he had written, Hunter wound down his driver’s window and rested his arm on the door panel. He caught the sound of the first twitterings of the dawn chorus and he noticed the darkness of the night sky was starting to break; a dull orange glow appeared above the rooftops of the industrial units in the distance.

After obtaining her signature h
e drove the young policewoman home and waited for her to change out of uniform, bagging her outer garments as exhibits, before leaving her to grab some sleep – though he guessed, from his own similar experiences, that would be a long time coming. Then he journeyed back to Barnwell Police station with the radio cranked up and the window open, the loud music and cool morning breeze refreshing his mind and body. As he locked up his car and ambled across the rear car park he met a couple of the uniformed members coming in for the day shift. He rode the sarcasm aimed at him as to his unusual early appearance and told them about the murder on Manvers Terrace. He knew that in less than an hour’s time those officers would be taking over the roles of the uniformed team, currently maintaining the integrity of the scene, and would be pretty hacked off within a couple of hours; the routine ahead for them would be one of tediousness, occasionally exchanging pleasantries with the inhabitants, but in the main standing around watching crime-scene trained officers going about their job while waiting in anticipation to be relieved by the next duty team on.

Once inside h
e made straight for the ground floor men’s washroom. Turning on the cold tap he supported his weary body on rigid-straight arms, staring at his reflection in the mirror while waiting for the sink to fill. Slowly turning he saw that the whites of his eyes were starting to look bloodshot and dark stubble now framed his strong jaw line. He not only felt tired, he looked tired.

Splashing his face
repeatedly with cold water, he re-checked himself in the mirror, buttoned up the collar of his shirt, set the knot of his tie straight and left the washroom feeling slightly better. He climbed the stairway up to the first floor. The Major Investigation Team office was empty; no one had arrived yet and all around peace reigned: within the hour he knew all that would change; the office would be buzzing with excited chatter as the team geared up at the prospect of handling a new case.

Pausing before his desk, h
e picked up his empty mug, switched on his computer, and made his way across the room to where the kettle, and tea and coffee making facilities were. Giving the kettle a quick shake, to check there was enough water in it he set it back down, clicked it on, dropped a tea bag into his cup, spooned in some sugar, and then as the water bubbled away he roamed his eyes around the room. The incident board, which took up a large proportion of the front of the room was at present in a clean state, though he knew by the end of that day that would have also changed; a penned opening chronicle relating to the murder of Gemma Cooke, together with the beginnings of a timeline sequence of events would have been initialised upon it. His thoughts drifted back to the murder scene and he began to tick off inside his head what had already been done. The click of the kettle, turning itself off, broke into his preoccupation. He made his tea and carried it back to his desk.

Entering his password into his desktop computer he d
irected the cursor straight to the District’s 24-hour incident log icon and opened it up. Scanning the list he selected the emergency call to 34 Manvers Terrace. The event, currently running to five pages, had already been tagged by Communications for the attention of the morning Command Team, across at District Headquarters and for the Chief Constable’s daily log. He began to scroll his way down through the text, noting the time of the initial call, double-checking it was the neighbour who had called it in, and then focussed on what action had already been done. So far as he could see it was a by-the-book incident with all bases covered. And he could see that from the scene a manhunt was being orchestrated to capture the chief suspect Adam Fields. As he hit the print button to get a hard copy the office doors burst open making him jump. His working partner, DC Grace Marshall, appeared in the doorway looking flustered. Her hair, normally a bundle of tight corkscrew curls, was damp and clinging to her face and she was devoid of her usual make-up.

‘
God, what a rush,’ she exclaimed, dropping her leather jacket onto her desk opposite. ‘Left David to see to the girls. Haven’t even had time to do my hair.’

Hunter stared across
at her and fixed her gaze. ‘Well we can’t let a little murder get in the way of that now can we.’

She
screwed her eyes to narrow slits and offered him back an exaggerated scowl. ‘Mister sarcastic. You know what I mean.’ She snatched away her eyes, opened up the shoulder bag she was carrying and began rummaging around inside. ‘You been here long?’ Before Hunter had time to answer she brought out a small make-up kit, eyeliner, and lipstick, from the bottom of her designer leather bag, and scuttled back towards the doors she had entered by without giving him a second glance. Over her shoulder she called, ‘Bring me up to speed in a couple of mins. I’m just gonna put on my warpaint.’ And, on that note Grace left the office.

Quarter of an hour later his partner had returned, her
blonde highlighted, dark hair, fashioned into its normal bunch of tight curls, and her tawny face stylishly made up with a light dusting of foundation. A hint of eye shadow framed her burnt umber eyes. She dropped her make-up back into her bag. ‘There,’ she said taking a deep breath, looking across her desk and fixing Hunter with a smile, ‘Normal service resumed and ready to face whatever the day throws at me now.’ She picked up her cup next to her computer, ‘I’ll just make myself a coffee.’ She pointed her cup towards him, ‘Want another?’