Tick Tick Tick (3 page)

‘You’re really pissin’ me off. Unless you want my foot up your arse, take a walk pal.’ One of these days Mack’s going to get in trouble for that. Not from me, of course.

We finally make it into the car and Mack rams the vehicle in and out trying to get away. I watch the media clamouring over each other, jostling to get the most gruesome shots of the body bag being loaded into the FME’s van, the old hack smiling and posing for pictures like he’s the star of some goddamn gruesome TV show. It repulses me – have they no compassion for the sacrifice of another human being? Mack’s getting pissed at the struggle to get the car out. Finally he manoeuvres a way, nearly hitting another woman reporter. She screams obscenities at him and gives him the finger. What happened to all the polite media ladies? Oh yes, they don’t exist round here.

‘Bloody media – they’re like rats, running out of every stinkin’ sewer.’

‘Rats have more manners,’ I reply.

CHAPTER 2

I wander back into the squad room. It’s crammed, bustling with activity. Coppers are sifting through mountains of files, computer keyboards are frantically being pressed, telephones ring constantly, the whining heavy in the air. Some just leave them off the hook, fed up with crank callers, crap leads, or just plain fed up. I know the feeling well. People stream in and out, passing any type of information and adding to a never-ending caseload that overwhelms us. I see Mike Spears, your characteristically arrogant macho copper, making a move on a colleague Wendy; he’s all body with no brain cells… really, not an ounce. Now don’t get me wrong, Wendy’s one fine looking lady; beautiful, with legs that seem to stretch for forever, skin like silk and a body that you would walk on water for… but she’s no one’s fool, least of all his. I watch this evolving scene with interest.

‘Wendy, babe, you know I’m your man. Hell, that probationer you’ve been seeing, he don’t know how to treat a woman like you.’ Mike leers towards her, but she just looks bored.

‘Try it on someone who cares,’ she yawns back.

Most of the other coppers, sensing something afoot, turn and stare, a lot of whistling begins. Mike puffs up his overworked chest; he looks like a cockerel on heat about to get laid – fat chance.

‘Now boys, wait in line, I saw her first.’ He swaggers up to Wendy, casually draping his arm over her shoulder, his hand brushing purposely across her breast.
Bad move
, I think. He doesn’t see the staple gun in her hand. She deftly thumps him in the balls with it.

‘Jesus!’

He doubles over in agony, sagging to his knees, his hands cupping his groin, tears springing from his eyes. So much for the hard man act now.

Wendy smirks. ‘No means no – you got that one now? Or do I need to repeat myself?’

The place erupts; coppers are falling over themselves cracking up, me included. It lightens the sullen atmosphere in the room, if only for a few minutes.

Mike gasps, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’ He’s still holding his groin. Perhaps she stuck a staple in it? I can only hope.

‘Oh, I heard, and it isn’t much.’ She waves her little finger in his face. That’s it, explosions of laughter, his humiliation is complete as Wendy walks right over him, her eyes dancing, flicking the hair out of her face as she tip-taps purposefully out of the room. Mike’s now rolling on the floor in complete misery and mortification – and I love it, love every damn minute of it. Who says a female copper can’t handle herself?

Mack walks in and tosses a file onto my desk. He sinks into the old, worn plum leather chair opposite, stuffs an unlit cigarette in his mouth and plants his great big feet on my desk. I ignore him and flick the file open. Mack starts reciting what he already knows.

‘She was Kathy Garland, age twenty-eight, a local shop manager. Her boss says she was well liked, friendly and easy going, due for a promotion shortly. She had no recent boyfriends that anyone knew of, no debts, good credit history, no priors – not even a traffic ticket. In other words, your perfect model citizen.’

Mack ignores the no smoking policy and lights up. I turn and breathe deeply, trying to ignore the smoke wafting my way, and sigh.

‘Where’s her car now?’

‘In the compound, waiting for forensics.’

‘What about the neighbours? Anybody hear anything, see anything suspicious?’

‘Nobody knows nothin’.’

How the hell can a young woman be brutally murdered in her own home and the neighbours don’t see or hear a damn thing? Impatience floods once again to the surface.

‘Jesus, she must have been screaming for help, you saw those defensive wounds, and she must have been screaming her bloody lungs out.’ My hands instinctively ball into fists.

Mack simply shrugs his shoulders. ‘You know what kind of neighbourhood it is. Too many gangs, pimps, prostitutes, illegals and deadbeats, they just don’t want to get involved.’

‘Well make them get involved. I don’t care if you have to get a damn search warrant for every single flat, but I want to start getting some answers – fast!’

Mack nods his head. He can understand my frustration, feels it too; he knows I’m not mad at him, just mad in general.

‘Something about this stinks. I’ve got a real bad feeling about this one.’

I drum my fingers on the desk, picturing the girl lying on the floor, another picture of her playing on a swing. Mack stubs out his cigarette, flicking ash everywhere, scrounges in his pocket for a faded pack of gum, stuffs a piece of it in his mouth and starts chomping away.

‘Jesus, Downey, in all the years I worked with you – you always get a bad feeling, especially about murders.’

Now I am pissed off. What happened to good old fashioned police work, like using your brain to try to get things solved? I hate murders I can’t solve. In fact I hate anything I can’t solve, it’s a bad habit of mine and he knows it. I glare at him watching me, waiting for my response.
Let’s not disappoint him
, I think.

‘I’m telling you Mack, she isn’t his first – and she isn’t gonna be his last. You see if I’m right… again!’

I swipe Mack’s legs off my desk; he nearly falls backwards out of the chair.

‘Stop smoking in the office and get the dog crap off your shoes – they stink!’

Thinking I’m not looking, I watch as he picks up a leg and starts sniffing a shoe. I walk out, smirking.

I stroll down to the reception area and begin checking what new leads are coming in. Scraps of paper are thrust at me, fast and furious, and as soon as I tuck a fistful into my pocket, more are shoved my way. The place is crammed with a mixture of media and perverts, each trying to outdo the other – it’s a close call, I know. It’s utter chaos. The desk sergeant is looking sorely stressed, an old timer who hates all this crap. Dealing with the scourge of mankind and the dregs of the media isn’t fun. One of the usual perverts sidles up to the desk, filthy jeans, ripped Pink Floyd top, hair matted with dirt and booze dripping from his breath. I can smell him from twenty feet away.

‘Look Kenny, just crawl back to your hole.’

‘I’m telling you sarge, I busted that child wide open.’

‘Oh yeah? How?’

Kenny begins to get excited, rubbing his hands together, his eyes widening in anticipation. ‘Well, you know, she got a little too worked up, if you know what I mean. So I just blew her head off – it was glorious.’

‘Not this time tosser, now get the hell out of my sight!’

I want to spit on the son of a bitch as he leaves – scum, pure evil scum. The desk sergeant just looks at me, despair written in his eyes.

‘Pervs, they just crawl out their hole anytime there’s a damn murder.’

‘I know sarge, just keep on doing what you’re doing, that’s all you can do. Hell, maybe one of these days they’ll actually have done something that we can slam them in the cells for.’

‘I ain’t got enough bloody cells for these perverts.’ Disgust washes over him as another one sidles up.

A petite, graceful middle-aged woman walks to the desk. She’s in a dark winter coat, matching gloves and handbag, her hair greying. Her face is slightly familiar to me, but I can’t quite place her. The eyes are wide but vacant, red-rimmed. Her cheekbones seem to have receded into the smallness of her face so that her head seems out of proportion, even on her small frame.

The desk sergeant doesn’t even look up.

‘Yes?’ he barks.

‘Could someone help me please?’ she quivers.

She looks totally out of place and utterly lost. I give him a little nudge and he glances up.

‘What can I do for you, ma’am?’

‘My daughter.’

‘Uh huh.’

It comes out in a strangled whisper. ‘The body – she was my daughter.’

‘What body would that be ma’am?’

‘Kathy, Kathy Garland.’

His eyes snap up. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry ma’am. If you’d just like to come this way.’

Suddenly I remember her from the pictures in her daughter’s flat. She is taken away for questioning, standard procedure in a case like this. It seems like a million flashbulbs go off all at once as the media frenzy at the back of the room realise who she is. They holler questions at us, not giving a hoot that this poor woman can hear every word.

Sometimes I could cheerfully pull a gun on the lot of them.

I know I’m going to get called through to the back to interview her, so I make my way there anyway. She’s been put in a small cramped room; all strip lights with no windows – not exactly warming. I nod to Fletch who’s managed to sit her down and place a glass of water in her fragile hands. It shakes between her fingers.

‘Ma’am, please try to take a sip,’ he says, not having the right words. Does anyone? Wendy comes down to offer assistance. It’s always helpful to have a woman with you in a situation like this. That’s not a biased comment, just pure common sense.

We gently sit down opposite her, and Mary Garland just looks right through us. I’ve seen this vacant look before and I detest every minute of this, knowing that I am about to inflict more pain. I would give anything not to have to do this to her, but I have to. It’s the worst part of my job.

‘Mrs Garland.’

She nods her reply, as the glass still shakes.

‘You are the mother of twenty-eight year old Kathy Garland, whose residence was flat 3c, 138 Green Close?’

‘Yes.’ The answer is whispered.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s my duty to inform you that your daughter has been the victim of a vicious murder.’

She just blinks at me. God, did I need to say that word?

She lifts her head slightly ‘How was she killed?’

‘At the moment we believe she was strangled, but we need to wait until the autopsy report has come in to be sure.’ I struggle to keep my tone gentle.

‘Did they… did they do anything else to her?’ Her voice shudders.

Oh shit, how do I get around this one?

‘Yes ma’am, unfortunately they did.’

I suddenly don’t want to tell her any more, knowing that it’s going to cause irrevocable agony, but… she presses on.

‘Is it true what they’ve said on the television?’ Her eyes bore into mine with the forlorn hope that only a mother knows. ‘Did they butcher my daughter?’

Goddamn media. If I could get my hands on one of them right this minute I’d shove my fist in their goddamn faces.

‘I’m so very sorry, but yes they did.’

She crumples like a paper boat caught in a torrent of raging water, a drowned and tortured soul. I can only wait until the sobbing subsides, the racking of her body grieving for her only child who she would never see again. The raw grief is almost unbearable to watch and I feel so damn helpless.

Sodden tissues get thrown into the waste-paper bin, mounting up until it’s overflowing. Her tears still trickle, although she is quieter now, her body swaying back and forth like a pendulum in perpetual agony. Wendy clings to her, trying to offer some semblance of comfort where none can be found, but I can no longer watch the anguish and have to turn away. Unclothed anger – fury – boils inside of me.

 Finally she stops, and I give her a few minutes to compose herself.

‘Can you tell me any of her last movements?’ I gently ask.

‘She phoned about five days ago. She was bright, happy, excited.’

‘Excited?’

‘Yes, she was going to be promoted. She was looking for a new flat, she’d seen one that she already liked. If only she had…’ The words tailed off.

‘Did she have any enemies, anyone that could bear her a grudge?’

‘Kathy? No.’ she shook her head furiously, abhorred at the very thought. ‘Sure, she could be headstrong, stubborn, but she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.’

‘How about an old boyfriend troubling her?’ I probe.

‘No, she hadn’t had a boyfriend in a long time, said she was too busy building a career.’

I nod my head, thank her and advise that we may have some more questions in the future. I offer my sincere condolences and leave Wendy to cope with her. I’ve had more than enough for one day. I just want to get home.