Dead Girl Found (DCI Grace Swan Thrillers Book 1)

Book summary

When a dead girl accuses her father of abuse during a spiritualist meeting, the truth behind her claims leads to a series of deaths and a complex investigation. DCI Grace Swan, battling her own demons, must uncover the truth in this gripping murder mystery told from multiple perspectives.

Excerpt from Dead Girl Found

It was the smell.

The smell of death, the sickly-sweet stench of decomposition oozing through the partially opened door of an attic flat in North London.

PC Eric Samuels, a tall barrel-chested black man with a shaved head, had smelled this deathly odour before, the memory of it never left you. However, probationer PC Wayne Ellsecar had not and turned a sickly pale-white hue, trying not to throw up.

’Listen Wayne, you going to be sick, get outside and do it, OK man?’

Samuels turned to a middle-aged man standing nearby with a key in one hand, a mobile phone in the other. He seemed at ease with the vile smell.

‘Are you the landlord, sir?’

‘Yes, my name is Hussein, I phoned for you as soon as I opened the door.’

‘Did you go inside?’

‘Just briefly. To check. I know what such a smell means.’

‘And how do you know what the smell means, sir, you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I come from Iraq. The smell of dead bodies is not unknown there.’

‘Is everything all right, I mean, I keep on knocking on her door, but she never answers?’ came a voice from below. All three men turned around to look. An elderly lady, leaning heavily on the handrail, was making her way up the stairs.

‘Who are you, love?’ Samuels asked, moving to block her from going up any further.

‘Hansen, Mrs Ivy Hansen, I live down below. I saw you coppers come up and wondered if she’s all right, the girl? I’ve knocked on the door a few times‘cos I haven’t seen her lately. And then there’s the smell. Must be the drains, I’m going to complain to the landlord, Mr Sodding Hussein, if he ever bothers to come around.’

’Mrs Hansen, hello! And how are you this morning? the landlord called to her.

‘Oh, it is you, ‘bout time you showed yourself, what with that smell an’ all but I’m worried about the girl, is she all right?’ she said as she tried to peer around the bulk of PC Samuels.

‘You get yourself back downstairs, my lovely’ said Samuels firmly. ‘There’s nothing for you up here’

‘Only being neighbourly, I’m concerned. S’only human nature to be concerned for your neighbour, in’t it?’ she persisted, determined not to miss out on whatever it was that was going on.

‘OK, darlin,’ Samuels said, going down to the old lady and taking her gently by the arm. She smelled of musty clothes and body odour overlaid with douses of lavender water. ‘Let me help you back down to your rooms, OK? You get inside, make yourself a nice cup of tea and we’ll be down later for a chat.’

PC Samuels firmly shut the door on her and quickly ran back upstairs.

‘You’d best wait downstairs, sir,’ he said to Hussein, ’this may be a crime scene.’

‘Yes. Understood. I’ll wait downstairs, no doubt you will need details of the tenant. Julia. Julia Jarrett. If it is her, that is.’

Hussein turned away and went down the stairs.

‘You stay here Wayne, ‘Samuels said, ‘no need for us both to go in just yet. You make sure Hussein, or the old biddy don’t come creeping back up again, OK?

‘OK’

Samuels cautiously nudged the door open with his foot. The silence was tangible, the absolute silence of death that seemed to blanket and muffle all other sounds. He slowly walked inside, holding a hand over his. face and nose.

Throughout his 30-year career in the police, he had attendedscenes with decomposing bodies; the lonely old pensioner dying alone and unwanted, the homeless guy living under the viaductand the starved baby of an alcoholic drug addict mother, who in her drunken habituated state forgot that she even had a child.

All these memories flooded into Eric Samuel’s mind unbidden, the stench as always triggering the lyrics of Billie Holliday’s classic recording of ‘Strange Fruit.’ He did not remember all the words, but two lines always came to him:

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

It was a powerful song about the lynching of negroes in the American South, which as a black man he could readily relate to. but it was not the smell of burning flesh but of decomposing flesh.

To his surprise, the room was larger than expected. To the furthest corner he could see a toilet, wash basin and shower cubicle, screened off by a plastic curtain. There was a kitchen worktop with a sink piled high withfood encrusted dishes, an under-counter cupboard and a wall cupboard, cooker and fridge.

The bed wasunmade, with grey stained sheets and a pale blue duvethanging down to the floor. A two-seat settee covered in red fabric, a wardrobe, glass-topped coffee table and a TV cabinet with a Sony TV made up the rest of the furnishings.

The room was laid with a pale grey carpet showing a dark red stain by the settee and clothes and dirty towels were heaped up in one corner.

On the coffee table was an empty bottle of supermarket vodka,coffee mug, an overflowing ash tray, a packet of roll up tobacco, Rizla papers and a box of matches. Also, there was a blackened teaspoon, cotton wool balls, three opened foil wraps with a residue of brown crystalstogether with a length of rubber tubing and a small plastic bag with some cannabis resin.

All this Samuels took in without consciously doingso but could have given a comprehensive description of the entire room and its squalid contents and drawn a detailed plan of the layout from memory.

The dead girl was lying on the floor in front of the settee, half on her knees, her upper body and head pressing down on the carpet in a grim parody of a yoga position. It was if she had leaned over too far whilst seated on the settee and fallen forwards, falling onto her knees and then head first onto the floor, her arms splayed out to either side of her. Her head was turned to the left, towards the door, as though looking for aid which never came.

She was, Samuels thought, aged about 19 or 20 years. The left half of her head was shaved, and her skull tattooed with a ragged swirling spiral, like some primitive aquatic worm whilst a crown of thorns encircled her neck Her left arm was also heavily tattooed, but the needle marks and veins which stood out stark and blackened from the ascorbic acid used to dissolve heroin could be disguised.

She was partially clad in stained white knickers, a grey T-shirt rucked up over her skeletal thin back revealing a white bra fastened by only one hook and she had a pink sock on her right foot only. There was a butterfly tattoo over her left ankle.

The body was swollen and bloated, the top layer of skin was loose, with a greenish sheen and visible red patches, bloody foam had leaked from the mouth and nose and the skin of her fingertips had turned green, swelling across her nails.

It was winter, and the squalid room was cold, for which Samuels was glad. Had it been spring or summer, the body would have been swarming with blow-flies and maggots. Even so, a few maggots still crawled about the soft flesh of the girl’s lips and he resisted an impulse to brush them off; the development stage of the infestation would assist in determining how long the girl had been dead.

PC Eric Samuels was no pathologist but knew enough to guess that the girl had been dead for over a week, possibly 8 to 10 days.

A syringe, dried blood at the tip and in the tube lay next to her out flung right arm.

‘Overdose’ he said in a quiet sad voice. He was the father of two daughters in their twenties and tried to imagine how it would feel if it was one of his own girls lying there. ‘You poor, poor girl, howeverdid it come to this, eh sweetheart?’

She might once have been very pretty, but decomposition does not beautify the dead. Death did not become her.

He mouthed a silent prayer, took a last look around the room and then went back to the door to call in his partner. ‘Take a quick look, don’t touch nothing, mind, and I’ll call it in.’ he said.

The Coroner would, of course, order an autopsy but Samuels had no doubt in his mind that the girl had died from a heroin overdose.

PART ONE – A MESSAGE, THE KILLINGS AND AN INVESTIGATION.

One

The town of West Garside lies some 16 miles to the northwest of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, huddled up against and climbing up the lower reaches of the Pennines. nestled into the slopes and valleys and spread along the flatlands of the river Gar. Always growing, the town reached out in timid fingers of development towards big city sister of Sheffield, whose own ribbons of expansion crept ever closer, soon these fingers would touch and forever entwine.

With a population of 137,000 at the last census, the town of West Garside boasts a Collage of Arts, a civic theatre and the newly opened Riverside Mall which had a Marks and Spencer store anchoring one end and an Aldi at the other; the usual high street shops as well as a multi-plex cinema and bowling alley.

The town had a non-league football team, there are seven 24 storey council tower blocks, some clad in the same flammable material as the Grenfell tower in London , scene of the worst fire disaster seen in Britain for many, many, years.

New light industrial factories and wholesale warehouses spread out along the riverside whilst the older parts of the town’s largely defunct industrial area centred around Redemption Island have now been gentrified. Factories and warehouses have been converted into trendy apartments. Restaurantsproliferate along with restaurants, specialist coffee shops, gourmet pizza parlours, hand-made burger bars, small craft breweries and bakeriesspecialising in artisan breads.

The old Duckworth and Dawes Brewery has been demolished and the site re-developed into apartments, the only feature remaining from the brewery is the stone and cast-iron entrance arch with the words ‘Duckworth and Dawes Brewery’ curving in green letters around the top of the arch.

Two local coal mines, Garside Main and Reculver Twoclosed within a year of the miners’ strike of 1993, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and miners’ union leader Arthur Scargill butted heads and egos,

The steelworks of Alexander and Matthew Ltd are much diminished in size and now concentrate on the production of specialisthigh grade steel, mainly for the aerospace industry. It had once been the largest employer in town, butit is the West Garside Council that now has the most employees.

In the opinion of Donald Jarrett, the council is full of Trotskyite jobsworths, with leftie-leaning Guardian-reading social workers, cottaging and dogging outreach workers, health and safety zealots, Stalinist traffic wardens and busybodies spying to see if you put the wrong rubbish in one of the different coloured bins.

But at this moment, Donald Jarrett had far more tragic affairs on his mind. All the colour has drained from his face and tears roll down his cheeks, pain-filled tears that he somehow thought would seem disrespectful to wipe away, they were a visual confirmation of his anguish.

He was seated on the settee in the front room of his house, his arms about his sobbing wife Janet. She held her head in her hands, weeping uncontrollably. Inspector David Boothroyd looked on sympathetically. ‘Of all the jobs a copper has to do, he thought, this is the worst; informing relatives that a loved one has died unexpectedly’.

There is no easy way to tell a relative that their loved one has been killed in car crash, suffered a sudden heart attack, had been stabbed to death in a fight at the pub, that their child has been killed playing chicken on the railway lines or that a loving husband has died in an accident at work, the inevitability of sudden death ever present; the Grim Reaper never very far away.

Sergeant Mary Tanner stood at the side of Donald Jarrett, a comforting hand on his shoulder whilst Family Liaison Officer, Kimberly Johnson, sat on the other side of Janet, her arm wrapped around the sobbing, distraught mother of Julia Jarrett, found dead from an overdose in a squalid bed-sit in north London.

‘I really am most sorry,’ Boothroyd said again. What can you say, he thought, however heartfelt your words might be, they’re only platitudes and nothing you say can sooth the distress or heal the raw wounds of grief and pain.

Janet looked up at him, her face swollen and red-eyed, clutching at a sodden tissue as though it were a life saver. ‘Is…is there any doubt? I mean, is there any doubt that it’s Julia? Could it be a mistake, mistaken identity?’

‘I’m sorry Mrs Jarrett, no, there is no doubt but that it is Julia. Bank cards, driving licence and benefits correspondence were all found with her. A formal identification of the…her body will be necessary but please do not hold out any hope that it may not be Julia. I am so sorry.’

Janet sobbed out loud again, her last hope that it was all some ghastly mistake, a hideous nightmare from which she would soon wake up dashed away. Taking a fresh tissue from the box of held by Kimberly, she dabbed at her eyes again and turned towards her son David, who stood by the front window, looking outwards, seemingly oblivious to the tragic scene playing out around him.

‘David, did you hear that, it is our Julia. She’s dead David Dead. Oh God. No. No.’

‘Yes, yes, I heard. Julia’s dead, sorry.’ he responded dully, still staring out of the window, not even turning to look at her.

‘Is that all you can say? Sorry? Your sister is dead and all you can say is sorry. Sorry?

‘What do you want me to say? Look, I’m sorry she’s dead, but am I heartbroken? No.’

My God, thought Mary Tanner, he’s a callous little bastard, can’t he see that his mother is devastated, totally devastated?

‘Always so cruel, David,’ sobbed Janet. ‘Julia’s dead and you’ve nothing to say about it?

‘OK. I’m sorry. And sorry for the way it happened. But look, she filled her arm with shit heroin, nobody else, and she OD’d on it. Yeah, it’s tragic and all that, but what more is there to say?’ She did it to herself. End of.’ At that, David Jarrett took his mobile phone from his pocket, switched it on, checked for messages, turned on his heel and walked out.

‘David, David, wait, please, Wait.’ Janet called after him in anguish.

‘I’m outta here. Can’t take all this hysteria shit.’

‘Let him go, love,’ said Donald, ‘He’ll be back, he’s just upset, that’s all, he can’t really face up to it yet, He’ll be back soon enough, and you’ll see that he’s upset, really upset about our Julia, honest.’

The front door slammed to and a minute or so later a car drove away with a squeal of tyres as it sped out into the road.

Janet burst out with fresh sobs, ‘Donald, why is he always like towards me? No matter what, he’s always like that. It’s as if he hates us, hates me anyway, and after all we do for him.’-

Donald could only shrug in mute impotence, he had run out of excuses for David’s behaviour, truth be known he was just a nasty little shit with a barrow load of resentments and bitterness towards us and the world in general.

The sooner he gets himself off his backside and moves out of here the better.

***

Two

Seven weeks later.

He spotted her walking down on the opposite side of the road. Chloe! Chloe Macbeth, once his sister’s best friend, in and out of the house all the time, as if she lived there. Inseparable they were,almost joined at the hip, like Siamese twins..

He waited for a gap in the traffic then hurried across the road to intercept her. She looked different from the last time he had seen her, but that was 2 years or so ago in fact, not long after Julia pissed off down to London and started pumping that shit into her arm.

He was 27, nigh on 28, about 5’10’’ in height and of slight build. His hair was thick and dark which he sometimes wore in a tight curl at the back of his head. His clothes, mostly jeans and sweatshirts, although clean were rarely pressed and he carried a permanent scowl across his face, a scowl that reflected his attitude in life, ‘If they don’t like it, tough shit!’

Chloe had her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, which swayed from side to side as she walked. She wore a pale green roll neck sweater, jeans with designer rips to the knees and frayed raggedy bottoms and a pair of dark-red Converse shoes. He could see that she was oblivious to her surroundings, earbuds plugged in as she listened to music on her iPhone., her head nodding in time to whatever she was listening to.

He stood in front of her as she approached and held his arms out in greeting. At first, she did not notice him, too engrossed in her music. He waved his arms at her, trying to attract her attention. She looked up, saw who it was and tried to dodge away to one side, but he stepped in front of her to block the way. She swerved in the other direction, but again he got in front of her, forcing her to halt. Irritated, she pulled out the ear buds and glared at him.

‘David Jarrett! What do you want, I’m in a hurry?’

‘Just to say hello, for old times’ sake, you know. I’ve not seen you around in a while, is all.’

‘OK, hello David. How are you. How are your Mum and Dad?’ Chloe asked out of politeness, not that she felt any need to do so.

‘Total zombies if you want to know. Donald moons around, hitting the bottle hard. And Janet? Janet just goes to all these spiritualist meetings, you know, convening with the dead and all that shit.’

‘Well say hi to them’ but David still tried to block her way as she made to move on past

‘What’s the hurry, eh? Like I said, not seen you around for a while.’

At 5’9’’, Chloe was nearly as tall as David as she glowered into his face. ‘I’ve been away, now let me pass.’

But still he blocked her way, grinning at her as if it was a childish game they were playing.

‘Been away? Somewhere nice? What, sun, sex and sangria in Magaluf?’

‘Askham Grange, if you must know. Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘Askham Grange? What that then when it’s at home? A fancy spa resort?’

‘Hardly. It’s a women’s prison. Now I really must go,’ trying once again to get passed him, without success.

‘Prison, eh? Cool. Waddya do?’

‘I stabbed this guy who pestering me in the street.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you always was a joker, Chloe. Look, why don’t you come around sometime? We could have some fun, just like we used to, you Julia and me, OK? For old times’ sake. What do ya say?

‘God, you are one sick puppy. Julia’s barely cold in her grave and here you are sniffing around like a dog over a pool of his own vomit. It’s pathetic, And sick. Now let me pass.’

Think about it, why not? Just think about it.’

‘It’s never going to happen. I’d rather go back to prison. Look, whatever happened, happened a long time ago. I’ve moved on. Not going back there.’ She dodged from side to side to try and pass but each time he blocked her way with his arms.

‘Look, don’t be hasty. I’ll give you a call, right? Give me your mobile number, I’ll give you a call. Fix something up?’

‘David. How can I say this politely? Just fuck off, right? Fuck off!’

And this time she did get past him and hurried down the street, seething with anger. He stared after her.

‘Bitch,’ he mouthed at her departing back , just as rain began to spatter down. He pulled up the hood of his black sweatshirt with a ‘Manifest Skateboards’ logo on the chest and hurried into Waterstone’s where he stayed until the rain eased up

***