A Soldier's Honour Box Set 2 (Sgt Major Crane crime thrillers Box Set) Read online

  “Not really, Sir.”

  Taylor coughed several times, as if the news that his friend’s wife was dead was stuck in his throat, a blockage he couldn’t get rid of, no matter how hard he tried.

  “Look, lad, just be there for your mate, okay?” Crane said. “We can’t break this sort of news to the man and then leave him on his own. I appreciate you haven’t done anything like this before, but you don’t need to tell him what’s happened. We’re doing that, okay?”

  Taylor managed a nod in agreement.

  “I need you to stay with him afterwards until the Padre gets here.”

  “Very well, Sir,” Taylor gulped, “I can do this.”

  “Right then.”

  The young man who opened the door looked at the three men stood in a ragged group along his equally ragged concrete path. He was dressed in civvies, a dark blue track suit complete with white polo shirt. His brown hair was shaved close to his head, a look favoured by many young soldiers.

  “Sir?” he asked, rubbing his hand over his bristly hair and addressing Crane. But without waiting for a reply, he turned to Taylor and said, “What’s going on, Shaun? What are you doing here?”

  “Can we come in, Lance Corporal?” asked Crane.

  “Come in?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it’s about your wife, Melanie.”

  “Melanie? Mel?” Green looked from one man to the other in confusion.

  “I think it’s best we come in, Sir,” Anderson said showing Green his CID identification and together Crane and Anderson guided the bewildered man through the house to the small sitting room at the back.

  “Look,” Green blustered, “what do you mean it’s about my wife?”

  Then he fell silent and stared at Crane and Anderson.

  “Oh God, I’ve the Branch, CID and my direct superior, all together in my house. Something has happened to Mel hasn’t it? Has she had an accident?”

  “I’m very sorry, Sir,” said Anderson, “but a young woman fitting your wife’s description was found dead earlier this evening, in the subway leading to the town centre. We found this in her handbag.”

  Anderson held up a driving licence with a picture of Melanie Green on it, protected by a clear plastic evidence bag.

  “How? When? Look, it, it can’t be her she’s at her amateur dramatics rehearsal, I’m going to phone her on her mobile right now and sort this out, there must be some mistake. Maybe her purse had been stolen and it’s someone else. There is, Shaun, isn’t there? A mistake?” Green finished his garbled speech with a beseeching look at his friend.

  But Taylor shook his head. “Sorry, mate, there isn’t.”

  That denial made Green grab his phone off a small side table and start pushing buttons with fumbling fingers.

  “Would this be the mobile you’re ringing, Sir?” Anderson interrupted.

  Crane took Green’s mobile from him, intending to stop the call, but he wasn’t quick enough and all four men stared in horror at the bright pink mobile Anderson was holding, as it began to ring. After a flustered few seconds of trying every button, Crane finally managed to cancel the call. He placed Green’s mobile back on the table, as the man fell into a chair and began to cry. Crane watched in sympathy as the man’s tears ran along each crease in his crumpled face. At a nod from Crane, Taylor moved around, squatted beside the chair and did his best to comfort his friend.

  Sitting opposite the sobbing man, Anderson said, “Lance Corporal Green, I’m very sorry for the loss of your wife, but we really need to ask you some questions.”

  “Questions?” was the muffled reply, as Green took the handkerchief proffered by Anderson, opened it and used it to cover his red eyes.

  “We need to talk about your wife. The first few hours of an investigation can be vital, so I need...” at Crane’s cough, Anderson amended that to, “so we need as much information as you can give us.”

  Green removed the handkerchief, hung his head and stared at the carpet beneath his feet, looking inward, adrift on the misery of his loss.

  “Do you understand, Green?” Crane asked. He knew the man was falling apart, but they didn’t have time for that. Crane and Anderson needed answers to the many questions they had and they needed them now.

  As Crane’s question provoked no response, he barked, “I said, do you understand, Lance Corporal?” hoping to break through Green’s grief, reach the soldier inside of him and get his attention.

  The ploy worked, as Green lifted his head, shrugged off Taylor’s arm and stared at Crane for a moment, with something akin to hatred in his eyes. Crane didn’t care about being hated, though. He didn’t need Green to be his friend, just to help them as much as he could.

  Green closed his eyes and mumbled, “Yes, Sir, I understand. What is it you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with where Mel was going this evening and why she was in the underpass, shall we? Then we’ll move onto where you were between 19:00 hours and 21:00 hours this evening.”

  Chapter 2

  “Well, now we know why she was in the underpass, but not why she was killed,” said Anderson as they walked back to Crane’s car, after leaving Green in the capable hands of the Army Chaplin, Padre Symmonds. Crane shivered and pulled his coat on, over his self-imposed uniform of dark suit and tie over a white shirt. He turned back and looked at the run-down row of Army houses they had just left, set amid weed infested cracked concrete paths and thought about the equally broken man they had just left.

  “Green insists she was a model wife. That she didn’t have affairs, or flirt with his mates, that sort of stuff,” he said to Anderson, subconsciously scratching the scar underneath his close cropped beard. “But... he’s only just got back from a tour of Afghanistan so, while the cat’s away….” His voice tailed off as he looked at Green’s front door and wondered if his attractive wife had taken solace in another man’s arms while her husband was away fighting for his country. If she had, she wasn’t the first to have done so and certainly wouldn’t be the last. But did that behaviour warrant murder? He wasn’t sure - but people had been killed for lesser crimes.

  “Good point, Crane,” said Anderson as he clambered into the car, bringing Crane’s attention back to the present. “And Green hasn’t really got an alibi, as he was home alone.”

  “When I’ve dropped you at the police station, I’ll get on with interviewing Green’s neighbours and friends as they’re on the Garrison, if you do the amateur dramatics people,” said Crane driving away from Williams Park back towards Aldershot Police Station.

  “Will do,” agreed Anderson. “You know, this case reminds me of one I covered a few years back, sometime after I joined CID at any rate.”

  “Bloody hell, how long ago was that? You’ve been in CID forever, haven’t you?”

  “I’m not old yet, Crane,” said Anderson running his hands through his thinning, grey wispy hair, subconsciously proving Crane’s point. “It’s a cold case. A young woman was stabbed in the same underpass. She was the wife of a soldier as well. Never did solve that one and it’s always bugged me.”

  “How long ago did you say?”

  “I’m trying to remember, probably 10 years or so. We didn’t get much help from the Army or their investigators on that one, I certainly recall that. Things were different then, I suppose. The Army was very good a closing ranks on civilians in those days. Even civilians in authority, such as the police. It’s not like that now. Why we practically live in each other’s pockets!”

  Crane knew that Anderson was not only referring to their professional relationship. Crane and his wife Tina and become good friends of Derek and his wife Jean. The Andersons were particularly helpful when Tina suffered from post-natal depression after the birth of their son Daniel. Thanks to Jean’s help and support and that of the Army wives who lived in their cul-de-sac, Tina was now well on her way to recovery. Derek was also the only friend Crane had outside the Army. Living and working on the garrison meant that everything tended to revolve
around all things military and it was easy to lose touch with civilian friends and acquaintances.

  “Well, never mind that now,” Crane said. “We’ve got a live case to solve. Your cold case needs to stay just that, cold.”

  As they pulled up at the police station Anderson said, “See you tomorrow for the autopsy.”

  “Will do. The Padre is taking Green to the Mortuary, so he can make the formal identification of the body first.”

  “Alright.” Anderson got out of the car and waved to Crane as he walked through the doors into the police station, still looking distracted. No doubt worrying over his cold case, Crane thought. But Crane’s priority was to get on with the new one, so before driving off he phoned Staff Sgt Jones, the man in charge of the Military Police boots on the ground and Sgt Billy Williams, Crane’s normal investigating partner, to arrange for them to meet him at Williams Park and help him canvass the victim’s neighbourhood.

  ***

  Back in the CID office, Anderson looked at his watch. 10pm. He reasoned he might get lucky and find someone still at the West End Centre, so he called for two detective constables to accompany him, as it was highly likely there could be 20 or more people in the theatre group, too many for one man to handle. Together they walked the few minutes to the West End Centre, known locally as ‘The Westy’.

  The Westy, a well-known live music and theatre venue, had been opened as an arts centre in 1974. It was housed in a converted Victorian school house, which had been sympathetically renovated. The most striking features on the outside were the three separate frontages of the building. Each had a large rectangular window with a brick arch above. These were topped by a pointed roof, accentuated by white painted decorative wood down each side of the point. Anderson always whimsically thought they looked like gingerbread houses from Hansel and Gretel. At least there isn’t a wicked witch inside here, he thought. On the other hand, he reasoned, there could be. A witch disguised as a normal human being, well, if amateur thespians could be called normal, he supposed. He shivered, not totally from the cold and pressed on. A sign on the wall advertised the play ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ opening in several days’ time.

  Walking under the triangular, blue and glass dome entrance and pushing through the door, Anderson, flanked by his two younger colleagues, startled a young receptionist by flashing his badge and asking for the amateur dramatics group. She pointed to the large main doors of the auditorium.

  “They’re in there. Doing a dress rehearsal. What on earth’s happened?”

  The receptionist was certainly shocked by a visit from the police. It couldn’t be him personally, Anderson decided. He knew he looked more like someone’s friendly dad, than a police detective. His tweed sports jacket, receding grey hair and his penchant for sweet biscuits and cakes, of which he always had a ready supply, re-enforced the illusion.

  He ignored her question and opened the theatre doors. The auditorium was in darkness with the stage dramatically lit, highlighting a bloody guillotine with a basket in front of it, complete with executioner. Walking across the stage, towards the guillotine, was a man dressed in a white flowing shirt and breeches.

  “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,” the actor said.

  Anderson watched mesmerised, as the actor continued his speech, what Anderson assumed to be the finale of the play A Tale of Two Cities. Anderson had read the book many years ago and the only thing he could remember from it was that line, the one that opened and closed the book.

  Kneeling in front of the guillotine the man placed his head on the block. “It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known,” he finished and as the guillotine dropped the theatre was plunged into darkness.

  Anderson was stunned by the dramatic moment and a shiver fanned his back as he once more wondered if Mel Green’s murderer was in the theatre. A jealous performer perhaps, hiding a dark secret. If so, his, or indeed her, acting skills were about to be put to the test under the close scrutiny of the police.

  The spell was broken by clapping and cheering and as the lights both on the stage and in the auditorium came on, the cast spilled onto the stage, crowding around the lead player.

  In a voice worthy of the actor he had just been watching, Anderson called, “Police - can I have your attention please!”

  As the company slowly turned to face him and fell silent, Anderson continued, “Thank you. I’m DI Anderson of the local police and I’m afraid I have bad news. A colleague of yours, Melanie Green, died earlier this evening on her way to this rehearsal.”

  There were collective gasps and a few sobs at the news.

  “If you could all file off the stage and sit in the first couple of rows, my colleagues and I will come around and take your details and ask a few preliminary questions.”

  “What the…is this really necessary?” the lead actor they had just been watching said as he walked to the front of the stage.”

  “It’s very necessary, Mr?”

  “Hobbs, Michael Hobbs. As you can see I’m the principal actor here.”

  Anderson shook his head, afraid that this wasn’t going to be an easy task, as Hobbs turned and indicated the cast, who were still crowded around him. He reminded Anderson of a regal rutting deer, surrounded by his doting does. Thespians were not Anderson’s favourite people. He couldn’t be doing with all the posturing and gesturing, which always grated. To Anderson, who was much happier calling a spade a spade, people like Hobbs were too affected for his taste. He sighed and hoped this wasn’t going to be more difficult than it needed to be.

  “I really must insist I’m afraid,” Anderson said.

  “But why? Is this really required? Just because someone has died.”

  Resolute in this thinking that firmness and fear was the best way of handling the actors, Anderson said, “Ladies and gentlemen, at the moment this is a request. However, if anyone feels they cannot assist the police, rest assured they will be arrested for obstruction. Mel Green didn’t have an accident. She was murdered.”

  A few gasps greeted his words, interspersed with comments of, “well really,” and “how?” and even “why?” But Anderson was not to be shaken and the glare he directed at the assembled cast was enough to make them begin to do as he asked and a few people started to clamber off the stage.

  “Can we get changed?” someone called.

  “I need to get home.” another said.

  “How long will this take, Inspector?” a man with a clipboard asked as he walked out of the wings.

  “As long as it takes, Sir. And you are?”

  “Richard Moore, the Director.”

  “Well, Mr Moore, if you’ll all do as I ask and stop asking me questions, we’ll be able to get on with this a lot quicker.”

  “Oh, very well,” Moore said. “Come along, everyone,” he clapped his hands, “we better do as he says.” Moore walked over to his lead actor and after a few heated words, Hobbs stalked off the stage.

  Anderson called the two DCs over. “I want everyone’s name and contact details, what they do in the theatre group and how well they knew Mel Green, if at all.”

  Anderson turned and looked around at the assembled cast. Some were still in costume from the dress rehearsal, some in normal clothes and a couple of men stood to one side, one of them being Moore. Hobbs had taken the centre seat in the front row and was surrounded by twittering women. Anderson decided they looked like baby birds, desperately fighting for attention, their heads back and beaks open, hoping for any tasty morsel their parent decided to toss their way.

  Tearing his eyes away from them he said, “You two get on with this lot, I’ll go and talk to Moore and that other bloke with him. One of you should start with Hobbs there. If you make him feel important he might have something useful to say.” But looking at the man who was shaking his long black hair out of his eyes, he said, “Although maybe not. He looks as if the only person he’s interested in is himself. Well off you go then,” he encourage
d and pushed the two young DCs in the direction of the cast.

  Anderson moved over to talk to Moore. “Mr Moore and?” he looked questioningly at the other man.

  “Gavin Lawrence, Producer.” The man extended his hand and shook Anderson’s.

  “Ah, so you two are in charge then?” Anderson asked, looking at the two men who were dressed in immaculate casual clothes. Anderson wondered how they got such sharp creases in their trousers - he certainly never managed it.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘in charge’ inspector,” replied Lawrence, emphasising his words with airy quotation marks. “But yes, we run things, I suppose. Decide what productions to put on, that sort of thing.”

  “Who deals with the auditions?”

  “Well, that would be me,” said Moore, looking up from the paper he was studying attached to his clipboard.

  “Did Mel Green get a part in this production?”

  “Well, yes, but only a very small one.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, shall we just say acting wasn’t her forte? Oh, she was enthusiastic enough, always turned up, always happy to help, but acting? No, I’m afraid not.”

  “She didn’t seem to mind not being picked for larger parts?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Alright. What happened tonight when you first got here,” Anderson continued his questioning.

  “Well,” Moore replied, “nothing different from our usual routine. We got here early, as we normally do,” Moore indicated Lawrence. “It took about an hour to get everyone ready and then we did a complete dress rehearsal, running through the play with no breaks.”

  “Did you notice Mel wasn’t here?”

  “Well, yes, but it didn’t really matter, she was only in the crowd scenes. We just got someone else to say her lines. She only had two as it was. I couldn’t delay the dress rehearsal for her.”

  “Did anyone arrive late? Seem flustered? Preoccupied?”

  Moore and Richards stole a glance at each other, looking horrified.

  “You don’t think anyone from here killed her do you?” said Richards.