The Birdwatcher (5 page)

‘I wasn’t supposed to.’ Cupidi glanced at South.

‘It’s miles.’

‘You’ll have to catch the bus.’

Her daughter threw out her arms wide in protest, as if she were being crucified. ‘I don’t even know which bus to get. I’m not sure they even have proper buses around here.’

DS Cupidi rubbed her forehead. Sitting in the front of the car, South said quietly, ‘Where do you live?’

‘Kingsnorth,’ said Cupidi.

‘You’d have to walk up Hythe Road to the Tesco.’ He told her the number of the bus.

‘Thanks, William,’ said Cupidi.

‘Who’s he, anyway?’ said the daughter, as her mother handed over change for the fare and the mobile phone she’d forgotten that morning. The teenager walked away from them, backpack sagging on her shoulder, not looking back.

Ashford Police Station was a municipal brick-clad concrete building; dull and functional. A ramp led down to the underground police car park. Cupidi drove the car down, switched off the engine and picked up a folder from the back seat, heading towards the lift door without saying a word. South followed behind. She was preoccupied, he guessed, running through what she would have to say in the morning meeting.

‘You OK?’ he asked, in the lift.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Just asking.’

South went to wait in the conference room on the first floor. Bright lights. Plastic chairs. Vertical blinds on the windows. The smell of cleaning fluid, cheap carpet and body odour.

Other coppers wandered in, holding mugs and folders. He recognised most of the faces. ‘Didn’t know you’d joined Serious Crime, Billy?’

‘They wouldn’t take me even if I asked.’

‘Oi, oi. Look sharp. Cupid’s coming.’

‘I thought Cupid was supposed to be naked with a bow and arrow.’

‘Thank Christ she’s not.’

A laugh.

Cupidi was just outside the doors, talking to the DI. ‘She’s trouble,’ said one of the detectives.

‘What?’ said South.

The man lowered his voice. ‘My brother-in-law is Scotland Yard. Apparently Cupid there had the Practice Support Team all over her arse.’

‘What for?’

But Cupidi was entering the room now, pushing the door open with her backside, a mug of coffee in one hand, a bundle of papers in the other. Ignoring the other men she went straight over to South and said quietly, ‘Question. You live alone?’

‘Yes. Why?’

Before she could answer, the Chief Inspector was in the room, clapping his hands. ‘Come on, boys and girls. Let’s get going. Lots to do.’

Cupidi moved to her place at the side of the room, in front of a whiteboard, while DI McAdam outlined what they knew so far. When the body was discovered. Presumed cause of death: trauma with blunt instrument to the head. Presumed time of death: 24 to 36 hours ago. ‘It was an extremely violent murder,’ said the DI. ‘Mr Rayner was bludgeoned to death over a prolonged period.’

Cupidi took two digital prints and put them onto the whiteboard.

South looked away. He could hear the intakes of breath around him.

‘Multiple beatings over several hours.’

‘Jesus,’ somebody said, finally.

‘This is rage,’ said Cupidi.

‘Precisely,’ said McAdam. ‘It takes a lot of work to do this kind of damage. This kind of attack gives us a profile. Anyone?’

‘Someone who literally cannot control themselves, or doesn’t want to,’ suggested Cupidi. ‘Someone who is so consumed by anger they cannot stop. Unfashionable though it may be to say so, the culprit is almost certainly male, given the force and nature of the attack.’

Even in this weather, the Chief Inspector looked sweaty in his grey suit. ‘Whoever did this is a very dangerous person,’ he said. ‘Almost certainly someone who’s committed violent acts before. We don’t know what made him angry, or much else at this stage. Was he angry at Mr Rayner? Or something else entirely?’

The Chief Inspector had given up smoking last year, but looked no better for it. In contrast, the DI was one of the new generation, younger than Cupidi, a man who cycled to work and changed out of his Lycra in the men’s room into pristine plain suits. When his hair had started thinning, he simply shaved it all off. McAdam said, ‘Sergeant William South here was a friend of the victim’s. We’ve asked him to join the murder squad for the initial phase of the investigation. Give us an idea who the victim was, Sergeant.’

Everybody in the CID room was looking at South now. He could see the raised eyebrows and the looks of concern. The Chief Inspector sat at a desk at the side of the room, chewing on the inside of his cheek, watching South; he cocked his head expectantly. South tried to think straight. How much did he know about Bob Rayner? Little, considering the hours they’d spent in the hides up by the reserve.

‘Bachelor,’ South began. ‘Late fifties. Retired. Former public school teacher. Taught English, I think. Must have had a few bob because those properties go for a fortune, now. Did fundraising for the RNLI. Interested in nature conservation . . . He had a sister who came to see him once a fortnight—’

‘The sister that discovered the body?’ said someone.

South nodded. ‘And apart from that, I didn’t see a lot of visitors. Any, in fact. He was a loner. We spent some time together looking at birds, but he wasn’t that much of a talker. He was . . . a quiet man.’ He looked around the room. Everyone was looking at him. He felt he should be saying more, but realised there was not much more to say.

Cupidi interrupted, rescuing him. ‘A pair of expensive binoculars have gone missing, plus a bottle of spirits—’

‘Whisky,’ said DI McAdam.

‘And a lot of the drawers were open, which suggests a burglary of some kind. Rayner may have disturbed the intruder.’ Cupidi added a DVLA picture of Rayner to the board.

‘Anything else from the house search?’

‘Bit strange but Rayner’s bin is full of bandages. About twenty packs of them. All unused. Like he was expecting a beating or something.’

‘Unless the killer brought them.’

‘Why would he have done that?’ asked Cupidi.

‘I don’t know. A threat maybe?’

‘Right. Let’s get down to actions,’ said McAdam. ‘Alexandra?’

Cupidi pointed at a young woman in a smart business suit. ‘Sorry, Constable. I forgot your name. Laura? Right. You find out everything you can about Rayner. We’ll need to question his sister as soon as we can. We’ve got her details, have we? Don’t let her go home. I’ll need to speak to her too before she goes anywhere. Find out anyone else we should be contacting. Liaise with William South here.’ She turned and wrote on the board: ‘
ONE. Friends and family
.’

Inspector McAdam was standing just behind Cupidi, watching her, sizing up this new woman from the Met. ‘OK. Task number two. You –’ Cupidi was pointing to another constable – ‘the moment Scene of Crime are out of the house, you’re in charge of going through everything. Look for anything obvious that might have gone missing: jewellery, watches, cameras, stereo. Make a note of everything you see, room by room. List what’s there, and what you think might have been there but isn’t. Dig out any personal items, letters, bills, receipts, bank statements. Find his mobile phone. I presume he had a computer?’

‘Yes,’ said South.

‘Bring that in. Can we get a computer specialist? Do we have one locally?’

‘This isn’t the Outer Hebrides, Sergeant.’ The inspector smiled.

Cupidi wrote on the board: ‘
TWO. House
.’ She continued: ‘Three. We think the pair of binoculars have gone missing. You –’ pointing again – ‘we need to find anyone who might have been offered them for sale. Anybody who handles stolen goods. All the pawnbrokers and Cash Converters. What make were they?’

‘Swarovski. 8.5 by 42s,’ said South.

‘Worth?’

‘A little under two grand, new,’ he said.

‘Bloody hell,’ said one of the constables.

‘There you go,’ said Cupidi. ‘That’s a possible motive already. Four. Contact all branches of Boots. See if any branch remembers selling twenty packets of bandages to a man recently. Get a description.’ She looked at her notebook. ‘Savlon Alginate Dressings. Pack of five. Got that? Fifth on this list: records. Go through the basics, NI, banks, then use what we find in the house. Any other bank accounts, pensions, will, dependants, all of that. Anything that might suggest a financial motive for this.’

If she was putting on a show to try and impress DI on her first case, it was a good one. ‘Six, local search. We need feet out there. Two teams. Team one goes door to door to ask if they saw anyone around Rayner’s property in the days leading up to the killing, if they saw anyone suspicious, if they’ve had anyone trying to break into their own properties. And finally, we need a search of the area. So far Scene of Crime say the weapon was not present in the house. We’re looking for something like a baseball bat. A blunt instrument but something with a bit of weight. We’re going to need as many officers as we can get. How many can we have down there?’ She turned to the DCI.

‘We’ll give you everything we can,’ he told her.

Cupidi stood there, whiteboard marker in her hand. ‘And what does that actually mean in terms of numbers?’

There was a pause. Everybody looked at the Chief Inspector. The smile thinned. ‘It means we’ll give you everything we can.’

‘How many people, exactly?’

‘Count them,’ he said, waving his hand across the room.

South counted. There were eight people in the room, not including the inspector, the DCI and him. Cupidi’s mouth opened as if she were about to say something. Before she had a chance McAdam said, ‘And I’m sure the duty sergeant can rustle up three or four more special constables for the next shift. What we have to remember is, it’s not about numbers. It’s about efficacy.’

‘Right. Well let’s be as . . . efficient as we can then.’ And she did her very best, South noted, to smile back at the DI. Then she looked right at South. ‘You live close by, don’t you, William? Can we use your place as a base tonight while we’re there? Can you spare a room for us? It makes a lot more sense to have somewhere local. Otherwise we’re driving back here all the time.’

South blinked. ‘Well,’ he said.

‘You know the area. It would be useful. If there’s a problem . . .?’

He felt the gaze of every person in the room on him; the inspector too. Cupidi seemed to think it a reasonable demand. Like Bob, he was a private man. He wasn’t in the habit of inviting people back to his house, but Bob had been his friend. ‘That’ll be fine,’ he said.

The DCI turned to the room. ‘OK? Any questions? If not let’s meet at Sergeant South’s place at five and see what we’ve got.’

Cupidi held out the marker to him. ‘Write your address down on the board,’ she said. ‘Then head back there. We need to go back to the scene, quick as we can.’

Above the noise, McAdam called out, ‘Before any of you people go anywhere, Alexandra here is going to get these all issued as HOLMES actions, OK? Don’t forget to stop by the incident room and pick yours up before you leave.’

Coffee still in hand, Cupidi grimaced, then pushed her way back out of the door again, followed by the inspector.

South went to the whiteboard to write down his address. ‘Sorry about your mate,’ one officer said, putting his hand on South’s shoulder.

Another said, ‘We’ll get the cunt, don’t you worry. Promise you that.’

South nodded. Coppers were a sentimental bunch; it was them against the world, and now this wasn’t just any murder, it was one connected to one of their own. South felt the weight of the CID man’s hand.

The CID officers remained in the room with South, staring at the list of tasks on the whiteboard.

‘That new one. She’s very . . .’ one of them said.

‘Assertive,’ another completed.

‘Dominant.’

‘You like that, don’t you? A bit of domination,’ said one of the women.

South watched Cupidi through the glass. She dressed like someone who was no longer trying to impress. The crumpled linen suit she wore was practical rather than feminine. She was on the phone, talking angrily to someone, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.

Presumably the other men just saw their new DS being assertive and dominant. South reckoned she was probably just arguing with her daughter again.

Coastguard Cottages was a white terrace that would have once faced out to sea. South’s house was in the middle. He moved books off the dining-room table. ‘Will this room do?’

‘You sure it’s OK, us taking over your house like this?’ said Cupidi.

‘You said you just wanted a room.’

‘Just this room,’ she said. ‘And maybe the kitchen for tea and stuff. I don’t think we’ll actually need the bedrooms.’ She started to help him clear the table, picking up another pile of books. ‘I was joking about the bedrooms,’ she said.

‘Leave it.’ He nudged her out of the way of the table. ‘I know where they go.’

She stood back, arms raised, leaving the books where they were. ‘Divorced?’