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THE INCIDENT ROOM
team was setting up its equipment in the mothballed police club at Maddington’s Saddler Street police station when Jack Fulton lumbered into the room shortly after dawn. In the confusion of bodies moving desks, screens and electronic kit in all directions he almost collided with a computer monitor as the IT technician carrying it stepped in front of him – only to receive the rough side of Fulton’s tongue when the big man tripped over the trailing plug lead.

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Gilham was waiting for him in what had once been the club’s TV lounge at the far end of the vast room, immaculate in his pinstripe grey suit and matching silk tie, but grim-faced, his arctic blue eyes as watchful as ever.

‘’Morning, Jack,’ Gilham said. ‘Seems we’ve got a bad one this time.’

Fulton nodded, eyeing his dapper number two with undisguised envy. Why did Gilham always have to look as if he’d stepped out of a Savile Row shop window, while he could never make his cumbersome bulk (enhanced by years of best bitter and Chinese takeaways) look anything other than what his wife had once described as ‘shit off a shovel’?

With his curly fair hair cut neatly to just below his ears, tanned athletic appearance and designer clothes, Gilham had the sort of celebrity image that guaranteed a speedy route to the top echelons of the service, especially as he had a first-class honours degree in criminal law and the sort of charismatic articulate persona (never one to resort to abuse, even under pressure) that could not but fail to impress even the most critical interview panel. Just thirty years old, already through his superintendent’s board and waiting for a vacancy, he had everything going for him and CID was simply a brief stepping-stone to more sophisticated environments.

Fulton shook his head, thinking that it had taken him twenty-three years to get his crown after five years in uniform and eighteen as a career detective. There was no real bitterness there – after all, it was a sign of the times – just a sense of cynical amusement at the way the service was going.

‘Good holiday, Phil?’ he queried, dropping heavily into a swivel-chair someone had wheeled into the makeshift office for him and shaking a cigarette out of the battered packet he had pulled from his coat pocket.

Gilham shrugged. ‘Good enough,’ he replied, studying his boss intently. ‘Sorry to hear about Janet.’

Fulton’s slab-like face froze into a rock wall. ‘So is half the bloody force, it seems,’ he rasped, lighting up. ‘Well, forget her and concentrate instead on Mr Justice Lyall, will you? Someone seems to have cut his throat and chopped off his balls – and not necessarily in that order – which is a tad more important!’

Gilham nodded. ‘So I gather,’ he murmured and thrust a plastic cup into Fulton’s meat hook of a hand. ‘Got some Irish in it,’ he said, pouring strong coffee into the cup from a flask he had lifted off the windowsill.

The big man took a sip and grunted his approval. ‘I need you to get up to speed on this thing as quickly as possible,’ he snapped.

Gilham pursed his lips. ‘I
will
do once I’ve visited the scene and got myself properly orientated. Don’t forget, I was still on my way back from the airport two hours ago.’

Fulton nodded. ‘Nice to see Jamaica hasn’t dented your enthusiasm for the job,’ he said drily.

Gilham chuckled. ‘How could I resist the compelling invitation you left on my mobile? What was it you said? Something about getting my tanned arse back in gear?’

Fulton smiled faintly, remembering his frame of mind after being called out to the murder scene from a nice warm bed. ‘So let’s see you do just that,’ he said.

He hauled himself to his feet and drained his cup before crushing the thin plastic in one hand and tossing it into the corner of the room. ‘And you can start by sorting out this bloody incident room before I blow a gasket.’

The young detective sergeant gave a good-natured grin as Fulton’s shed-like bulk stormed from the room, trailing smoke from the cigarette jammed in the corner of his mouth. ‘The Grunt didn’t look too happy, guv,’ he called across to Gilham.

‘Shut it, Bryant,’ the other threw back with a tight smile, ‘or I’ll get him to sit on your head!’

Herbert Lyall owned a big Georgian house with extensive wooded grounds, enclosed by a seven-foot-high wall, just outside the town. Fulton was pleased to see the uniformed constable manning what appeared to be electronically operated entrance gates at the front entrance and he was only admitted after the lad had radioed to the house. The early-turn inspector had obviously followed his instructions to the letter by making sure the place was properly secured.

He already knew that Lyall was a widower, but was surprised to discover just how much of a recluse he was.

‘Couple of cleaning ladies came in each day apparently,’ the hard-bitten detective sergeant told him after ushering him into the hall. ‘One of them turned up here this morning after we had arrived – a Mrs Doreen Mason. Otherwise, the old boy seems to have kept pretty much to himself.’

Fulton studied his sergeant’s sallow pockmarked face, noting with undisguised distaste the greasy black shoulder-length hair and half-buried earring, which might have suited a twenty-something pop star guitarist, but was hardly appropriate for an ageing detective sergeant with a wife and three children. Dick Prentice was a rather grubby and not very personable man and he had few friends to speak of, but he had been around like forever and was well known for his attention to detail. Little escaped the notice of the lean taciturn detective and that made him a particularly useful member of the investigation team.

‘Not married then?’ Fulton tested.

Prentice nodded. ‘Was. Wife died four or five years ago and his only relative is a recently married daughter, Emily Ford, who lives in Hampshire. We’ve asked the local Bill to get hold of her for ID purposes.’

‘No dogs or anything?’

The DS shook his head. ‘Only a couple of cats.’

‘So someone could easily have broken in here?’

‘No sign of a break-in, guv – except by us when we forced the front door – and it wouldn’t have been an easy job anyway. Perimeter wall has razor wire on top and a camera covers the electric gates at the front. Old boy controlled them from his study. Also the place is immaculate. Bed looks as though it hasn’t been slept in and the burglar alarm was set.’

‘Burglar alarm?’

‘Yeah, we triggered it when we went in. Mrs Mason has only just turned the damned thing off.’

‘But how did you get through the front gates if they are operated from inside the house?’

The sergeant frowned. ‘That’s the funny thing, guv. The gates were wide open when we turned up here, even though the burglar alarm was set. Maybe Lyall forgot to close them when he left.’

Fulton ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘So it looks as though he left the house of his own accord?’

‘Yes, but not in his own car.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘According to Mrs Mason, he owned two cars – an old Morgan and a 4.2 Jag. They’re both still in the garage. We checked.’

‘Tyre tracks?’

For the first time the DS looked uncomfortable. ‘Plenty, guv. Three police vehicles turned up here.’

‘So if there was anything worth looking at, the plods have destroyed it?’

There was no answer at first, then the other added helpfully: ‘Lyall could have used a taxi. We’re checking round the local firms now.’

Fulton grunted. ‘And if he didn’t, then our killer must be someone he knew and trusted enough to let in. Now there’s a whole can of worms.’

Fulton got home around ten o’clock that morning, tired, even more irritable than usual and very hungry. But he found the small detached bungalow on the outskirts of Hodham village where he had lived with Janet for close on twenty years far from welcoming without the woman’s touch he had come to expect for so long.

The smell of the takeaway he had bolted down the previous evening still lingered, the kitchen sink was overflowing with unwashed crockery and the crammed waste-bin had started disgorging its sticky contents all over the floor. The place was a tip and, to make matters worse, the cafetière needed thoroughly cleaning out before it could be used again, the stale coffee gunge at the bottom smelling like a week old ashtray.

Slumping into an armchair in the lounge, he settled for a whisky and another cigarette instead of breakfast. The day had started badly and with the corpse of a murdered judge now lying in the mortuary, it could only get worse. A juicy story like this was almost certain to have been passed to the press by now – maybe filed by a local stringer or even leaked by one of his own officers for a bit of back-pocket money – and he knew from bitter experience that the newshounds and ‘houndesses’ would soon be all over him like a rash. Time to reflect for a few moments in the sanctity of 6 Colmore Gardens before the whatnot hit the fan in tsunami-like quantities. Not that he had much to reflect
on
as yet. His visit to Lyall’s house had raised more questions than it had answered and his interview with the bobby who had found his body had produced nothing of significance – except managing to raise his blood pressure.

Fulton had never liked sycophants – they turned his stomach – which was probably why he had taken such an instant dislike to PC John Derringer.

Thin and weasel-like, with restless dark eyes and an inbuilt obsequious manner, there was nevertheless a hint of contempt in the set of the slightly crooked mouth, suggesting that, deep down, Derringer saw himself as a cut above the rest. Not a young man (he had to be in his late thirties) Derringer was an experienced mid-service bobby who knew most of the wrinkles associated with the job and, according to the shift inspector Fulton had chatted to on his way to see him, not averse to taking liberties if he thought he could get away with it. But he was also one of those lucky officers who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time and although not promotion material, having failed the selection board for sergeant regularly over the past ten years, he had been commended for good police work on five separate occasions.

His discovery of Lyall’s body was another of his successes and though Fulton did not like the man, he was forced to acknowledge in a grudging way that Derringer had produced a good result and therefore had every reason to be pleased about it. But that was about as far as things went. The patrolman hadn’t noticed anyone at the scene or any cars parked in the lane next door. In fact, other than being able to confirm his discovery of the body at a quarter past one precisely, he had had nothing really useful to offer the investigation – apart from himself, of course, and he made absolutely certain Fulton was aware of his interest in joining the inquiry team.

‘Prick!’ Fulton muttered, drawing the smoke from his cigarette deep into his lungs and leaning back in the chair to stare at the discoloured ceiling. Where the hell did the force get arseholes like Derringer?

But he didn’t get the chance to ponder that particular point any further, for the telephone by his elbow shrilled.

‘Yeah?’ he barked into the receiver.

‘Hello, Jack.’

He recognized the seductive voice at once. ‘Hello, Janet,’ he said quietly, straightening in the armchair.

There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. ‘Missing me?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Where are you, Janet?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

He stubbed out his cigarette in the dried-out earth of a dying potted plant. ‘I’m too busy to play games, Janet.’

‘Ah, busy again are we, Jack? The famous detective superintendent has another case to solve, has he?’

‘Come on, Janet. This is stupid. Tell me where you are.’

‘You’re the detective, Jack. Why don’t you find out?’

Before he could say anything else the telephone went dead.

Cursing, he checked the answerphone – only to be rewarded by the automated voice telling him the caller had withheld their number. Slamming the receiver back on its rest, he reached for his whisky glass and drained it. Brilliant! Now, as well as a high-profile murder inquiry, which looked to be heading straight into a cul-de-sac, he had a psychotic wife who was intent on playing some kind of off-the-wall game of hide-and-seek with him.

He lurched to his feet. Well, she could play the game on her own. He had more important things to do – like taking a shower, for instance – and the phone could ring as much as it liked for the next half-hour.

In fact, it rang again within ten minutes, choosing the worst possible moment just after he had settled himself on the toilet seat with the morning newspaper. Sticking to his decision, he ignored it completely, but that was a mistake, for the next moment the mobile chirped in the pocket of his trousers.

‘What now?’ he rapped, clutching the phone to his ear and waiting for Janet’s soft voice to start mocking him again.

‘What now indeed?’ a familiar male voice commented.

He grinned, recognizing the speaker as Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Stoller, the head of force CID. ‘’Morning, Andy,’ he said. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

There was an unimpressed grunt. ‘Where are you, Jack?’

Fulton grinned. ‘On the bog at the moment,’ he replied.

‘Oh … nice. Well, when you’re
off
it, perhaps you’ll come and see me – and make it like yesterday, will you?’

Fulton had never attached much importance to the police hierarchy’s obsession with urgency, aware from past experience that in the final analysis it was seldom justified, and as he knew that the journey to headquarters only took about half an hour anyway, he insisted on having a quick shower before going to see his chief. But that turned out to be a mistake, for when he eventually left the house twenty-five minutes later and went to his car parked in the driveway, he found he was facing a substantial handicap: the two nearside tyres of the Volvo were completely flat.

For a moment he just stood there, studying the buckled rubber with a mixture of anger and disbelief. There was no way he could have incurred a double puncture accidentally – that was stretching coincidence much too far – which meant that some little toe-rag must have actually sneaked up his driveway and slashed the tyres while he was in the shower. The bloody cheek of it!