Death Call Read online

  Grief, however, felt as though he were laying bare his soul, which was something far outside the scope of his experience. His skin felt raw and the crispness of his shirt rubbed at his arms like sandpaper.

  The opening of the door jolted him from his introspection. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Crane said as Kim appeared in the doorway.

  “Not at all, sir, come in.”

  Crane sighed and stopped with one foot in the house and the other still outside. “Only if you’ll stop call me sir, boss, or Sgt Major.”

  “Deal,” smiled Kim. “Although it’s difficult,” she said as she walked through to the back of the house with Crane following.

  She took him through to the conservatory, which looked out over a well-manicured garden. As Kim prepared two coffees, Crane looked around at the thickly cushioned cane furniture, the mass of green pot plants in the corner, mirroring the mass of green outside, and thought of it as a peaceful oasis in the midst of the army Garrison. He watched small sparrows playing in the birdbath in the centre of the lawn, jumping in and out of the water, shaking drops of water off their feathers all over their companions and twittering with delight.

  When Kim came back, he watched her fold herself into a chair. Her navy cropped trousers pulled up to her knees as she bent them. She smoothed down a striped top as she settled into her seat. Her calmness struck him. She’d always been cool headed at work, back in the day when she’d been in uniform. Somehow, her blond hair gave her a glacial look; as though she were an iceberg serenely floating along, but with a dangerous underside should you cross her. Only one man had made that mistake and she’d faced him and sent him to jail for a very long time.

  He asked, “Is that your work? The garden? I don’t remember the Padre being green fingered.”

  “Yes, I find it a lovely place to be and I like the feel of the earth between my fingers. It grounds me, literally and figuratively.”

  “I guess you’re referring to your counselling practice?”

  “Mmmm, it’s hard to disconnect sometimes, so that’s when I attack the weeds and mow the lawn. Anyway,” she turned her head back to Crane. “How are you?”

  All Crane could manage was a shrug.

  “And Daniel?”

  That was a less emotional subject, so Crane started telling her about Mrs Strange and what a lifesaver she was. “She’s a marvel.”

  “I’m so glad. The only thing that bothers me a bit is her age.”

  “Really?” Crane looked at Kim over the rim of his china his cup, rattling it back into the saucer as a tremor passed through his hand.

  “One of the reasons she came to you was because she was unable to manage the lifting of her patients anymore, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I know that, but there’s no lifting of heavy people in my house.”

  “No, but she is looking after a boisterous three, soon to be four-year-old, don’t forget. Do you think you could help her out a bit?”

  “What with? She hasn’t said anything to me.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about some of the more lively activities; going to the park, playing football, helping him on the jungle gym, you know.”

  Crane had to smile. “You and your wily ways, I know what you’re up to. You’re trying to get me to spend more time with Daniel.”

  “Why don’t you?” Kim asked and he could hear the gentleness in her voice. She wasn’t accusing him of anything, he didn’t feel like a failure, didn’t feel judged, so he replied honestly. “It’s too painful.”

  “For your hip?” she gestured to his leg.

  “No, emotionally. Every time I see Daniel, I cry, either outwardly or inwardly. When I look at him I see Tina and I don’t know how to handle it.”

  “What did you used to do with him?”

  Crane smiled at the memories. “We went swimming a lot and played football in the back garden. He used to help me in the garage when I was tiding up. He’d hand me the tools to put back in their correct place.”

  Kim nodded, and then said, “Poor Daniel.”

  “Because he’s lost his mother?”

  She nodded her agreement. “And now his father.”

  “No he’s not, I’m still here,” Crane sat a bit straighter in the chair. “He’s back living with me and there’s Mrs Strange.”

  “Sir, sorry, Tom, I was just think how painful life must be now for Daniel. He has the pain of losing his mother and now the pain of you rejecting him.” She held up her hand to stop Crane’s retort, so he backed down, sinking into the cushions of his seat and let her continue. “Don’t give him issues for later in life. Don’t abandon him. Allow yourself to love him and you’ll see it can make a difference. For both of you.”

  Crane sat in silence for a while. “Okay I’ll try,” he said, placing his empty coffee cup on the small cane table beside him and preparing to leave.

  “Oh and don’t forget to talk to him about Tina.”

  “Tina?” He stopped half up and half down. As she began to speak again, he sat.

  “Yes, she was his Mum, Crane. He needs good memories of her, so he can feel how close they were, how much she loved him. Come on, you know the drill.”

  “I’m very afraid that I don’t, Kim and that’s the problem.”

  “Just relax, Crane, and play with him. Daniel will show you how, if you’ll let him.”

  31

  Finally, there was something for Crane to do. He and Billy had three potential leads to investigate. Three people. One of whom could be the killer. Of course, Anderson hadn’t wanted Crane to go. Didn’t want him anywhere near a potential suspect. Everyone was all too well aware of the hair-trigger Crane’s anger was on. But Crane had insisted. Said that there wouldn’t even be an investigation without him. No one had believed him to start with and look where they were now.

  The only way he’d swung it, was that he’d agreed Billy would go with him. To keep him in check. Make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Like try and kill the bastard. Anderson said he wasn’t strong enough to stop Crane attacking someone and anyway he was too old to start fighting. Holly was a slip of a girl really, even though she took self-defence classes. Ciaran and Dudley-Jones weren’t exactly Adonis-type male specimens, spending far too much time in front of computers, rather than training. So it had been decided that Billy, the keep fit fanatic, would be his partner for this particular task. He had the strength, wherewithal and training to stop Crane if he was about to strike.

  Speeding towards Winchester from Aldershot, Crane’s head was full of Tina. Hope that he would be able to avenge her death. That she wouldn’t have died in vain. Billy, from the driver’s seat, interrupted his introspection and dragged him back to the present.

  “Have you been up to much, you know, while the background checks were being made?”

  “Yeah, actually, I’ve been trying something Kim suggested.” Crane felt comfortable talking to Billy about Kim. They’d all worked together in the past for several years and pretty much knew each other inside out.

  “Which was?”

  “She recommended spending some time playing with Daniel. Like I used to, before… you know.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Yeah, it was actually. I’d been afraid to, I suppose.”

  Crane turned away and looked out of the window. Luckily, Billy took that as a signal that the conversation was over. He’d spent the past couple of days playing with Daniel, as Kim had asked, but he’d not talked about it to anyone. Not Kim. Not Derek. For the time being his relationship with his son was private. They were both feeling their way and Crane didn’t want any outside influences disrupting the trust they were building.

  The only person who knew anything about it was Mrs Strange, of course, who was always on hand to take over if it got too emotional for Crane. She would smoothly tell Daniel it was time for milk and cookies, or bath time, or an appropriate activity for the time of day. Crane was taking little steps towards mending his relationship with his son, wh
om he had turned away from after Tina’s death. It hadn’t been the little boy’s fault and it was about time he stopped taking it out on him.

  With a deliberate effort, Crane pushed his personal life to the back of his mind and turned to the three files on his lap. “So, who’s first?”

  “Sam Callaghan,” said Billy. “The address is this side of Winchester, so I thought we’d start there.”

  Crane nodded as they swooped down the A31 towards the city itself.

  Billy pulled up in the middle of what Crane would have called a ‘Council’ estate, although he was sure all the houses were now privately owned. A sad reflection of the UK’s housing crisis with hardly any affordable housing stock. He’d read somewhere recently that with the average price of a house being over £200,000, a person earning a normal salary of £28,000 a year would need to borrow at least 8 times their annual salary in order to buy one. A nonstarter. Crane was glad now that he and Tina had bought their house in Ash some years ago. And hadn’t sold it.

  Sam Callaghan was a graduate of Winchester University, who had worked for the NHS in Hampshire. He’d left their employment last year and the house they were looking at, was his last known address.

  Answering Billy’s knock was a young, harried woman. Her hair was badly tied back, so that wisps of it stuck to her damp skin and she was wiping her hands on a towel. In the background could be heard a television and sounds of children squabbling over the remote control.

  “Yes?” her dull eyes went from Billy to Crane. No question in them, just resignation.

  “Police,” said Billy, not bothering to differentiate between the military police and the civilian police, as he flashed his warrant card. “We’re looking for Sam Callaghan.”

  “So am I,” the woman said.

  “Sorry?”

  “He left a few months back. Just up and went. Left me with no money, no help and two young children.”

  “So he’s missing?”

  “For the past six months.”

  “And you are?” Billy had his notebook out.

  “Julie Callaghan. We’re not married. I just changed my name. Easier for the kids, you know at school and stuff.”

  “Did you report him missing to the police?”

  “Of course. Not that it did any good. They just kept quoting statistics at me about the large number of people who do runners. That’s what they think happened to him. He couldn’t hack it anymore; you know family life and the kids, so he took the easy way out. Bastard.”

  “Do you think there could be any other reason for him leaving?”

  “Like what?” Julie said, but her attention kept being pulled back to the children, who’s squabbling was getting louder and Crane was afraid the argument would end in tears very soon. “Look, I’ve got to sort the kids out. Can you come back?”

  Crane didn’t really want to do that. He felt it best to talk to Julie now, before she had time to concoct a story, just in case she was hiding anything.

  “We’re happy to wait. In the kitchen perhaps?” Crane moved towards her.

  “Oh, right, I suppose so,” and Julie fled to the room where the children were now coming to blows, leaving the front door ajar for them.

  Crane and Billy only had to wait about ten minutes, while she soothed anger, wiped tears, produced a drink and put on a Disney video.

  “There,” she said, flopping into a chair. “Now, what was it you wanted to know?”

  32

  Just a few miles away, Clive was doing some investigating of his own. That’s why he was sat opposite Pam, with two cups of coffee between them. He needed to try to get information for Crane, to show he was co-operating with the investigation. It took quite a bit of general chitchat, about the job mostly, before he managed to get her to open up.

  “So how are you doing?” Clive asked, with the emphasis on ‘you’.

  “Oh, you know.”

  “I do,” he said. “It’s not easy is it, carrying on without them?”

  Pam’s eyes filled with tears. “I feel so vulnerable, Clive.”

  “That’s normal. Especially because your husband’s death was so sudden. The last thing you expected.”

  “Exactly. Thank God for work, really. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane.” Pam took a sip of her coffee.

  Clive noticed she was drinking slowly and her cup was nearly full. His spirits sank. This could be a very long chat.

  “Do you find talking about him and what happened, helps?”

  “No, not really, because no one else knows what I’m going through. Apart from you, of course.”

  Pam had actually blushed. Oh Christ, thought Clive. He was going to have to be careful. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he ‘liked’ her. Nothing could be further from the truth. How could this frumpy, middle-aged woman ever compare to his beautiful wife?

  “What do you do to keep busy at home?”

  “Sorry?” Pam looked at him as though he’d said something outrageous.

  “For instance, I’m thinking of taking an Open University course,” a white lie, as he was already deeply into his studies. “Maybe you could do something like that?”

  “Oh, gosh, no,” said Pam. “I’m not nearly bright enough to do anything like that.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “No, no that’s not me at all.”

  Thirty minutes later, Clive managed to extract himself from Pam’s clutches. Leaving the café and walking down the street, taking great gulps of fresh air, he was glad for the brisk wind, which he was hoping would blow away Pam’s cloying scrutiny. As he walked to his car, he had to accept that her explanations for her strange behaviour seemed plausible, with tales of going through the menopause and its symptoms. Apparently, that would explain her sweats, emotional outbursts and burgeoning weight. She clearly didn’t have the technical knowledge needed to hack into the computer system. Clive kicked despondently at an empty can littering the car park. He was hoping to have been able to take Crane a lead.

  33

  The operator was on line. He’d taken a couple of calls for minor problems and told the callers to take the injured person to hospital themselves, saying they didn’t have a hope in hell of seeing an ambulance. Which was true, of course. He wasn’t able to dispatch one. He was just thinking he ought to leave soon, just in case anyone noticed he had burrowed his way into the system as he took another call.

  “999 what’s your emergency?”

  “I need an ambulance. There’s been an accident!”

  “What’s the address of your emergency?”

  “Oh, it’s 1 Glebelands Avenue.”

  “And the postcode?”

  “GU12 5BH”

  Thank you. I’ve located your address on the system.” A blatant lie, but he was getting good at lies. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “It’s my son. He fell off the garage roof. Please tell me you can help him?”

  “Are you with him now?”

  “No, no, I’m in the house.”

  “Can you take the phone to him?”

  “Yes, of course, if you think I should.”

  “Definitely. I’ll wait until you’re there.”

  He heard rustling and bustling on the other end of the line. As the mother went outside, the sound of crying became louder.

  “Right, I’m here,” she said.

  “Good. What condition is your son in?”

  “Condition?”

  Jesus was the woman thick or what? “Yes. Conscious, unconscious, twisted legs or arms.”

  “Sorry, yes he’s, he’s…”

  “Please, it’s very important. For the paramedics you understand.”

  “Yes. Right. He is unconscious. Both legs are twisted out of shape. His eyes are open, but sort of rolled back in his head.”

  “Is there any blood?”

  “Yes,” the mother sniffed. Loudly. “Lots of it coming from the back of his head. What’s wrong with him? Is he
going to die?”

  The operator ignored her question. “Is he breathing?”

  “Um, sort of, I think so.”

  “Put the phone to his head please.”

  “Sorry?”

  “If you can’t tell me if he’s breathing or not, then I’ll have to listen for myself.”

  The mother didn’t respond to the rebuke, but she must have placed the phone to the boy’s head, because the operator could hear ragged breathing, which was becoming shallower with every breath.

  “Where’s the ambulance?” The mother shouted at the phone. “How long will they be?”

  The operator ignored this intrusion and concentrated on the boy’s breathing. Which was getting slower. And slower. And slower. Until… a final gasp and it was all over.

  The operator closed the call and sat back. Relishing the moment. Once more, he wasn’t alone. Another family would feel the loss, heartbreak and impotency that came with an unexpected death. One where the emergency services had let them down.

  34

  A team meeting was taking place in Crane’s house. Crane, Anderson, Dudley-Jones and Billy were present. They were involved in a brainstorming exercise to see if they could plot out their next moves.

  “Billy and I can carry on trying to track down Sam Callaghan. He’s certainly our best lead so far.”

  “Didn’t the other two names pan out?”

  “No, Crane said. “One was in Australia and the other one was happily married and on an extended honeymoon in Thailand.”

  “It’s all right for some,” grumbled Dudley-Jones, “travelling the world.” However, he quickly shut up after a glare from Crane.

  “How are you getting on with the computer side?” Anderson asked the young man.

  “Because the Emergency Response Centre have at last given me remote access to their system, I’ve found the operator’s ‘back door’. We haven’t closed it as we don’t want whoever it is to know we’re onto them. That means I can lie in wait for when he’s on-line. Mind you it could take hours if not days of sitting here, hoping for an alarm that he’s in the system and then he might not be in there for long. Or at least not long enough for us to pinpoint his location.”