Ugly Duckling Read online

  Ugly Duckling

  Malcolm Allen

  Copyright © Malcolm Allen 2013

  All rights reserved

  Kindle Version

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental

  Chapter 1

  'Roger, will you turn that bloody music down!'

  The voice came from downstairs but fell on deaf ears as “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera pounded through the speakers in Roger’s room “I am beautiful no matter what they say”.

  Roger was different to other teenagers, sure he liked his music, was rebellious, hated his parents and couldn’t wait to be able to leave home, but there was something about Roger; his room was decorated with posters of Kylie Minogue, Christina Aguilera and Kurt Cobain, he had a very particular taste in music and his dressing table was tidier than any parent could ever hope for from a son.

  'Roger will you please turn that bloody music down, I can’t think down here.'

  'Piss off,' Roger thought as he turned the music down, just one notch.

  Rogers’ parents had never really accepted the way Roger dressed but simply tolerated it hoping that he would grow out of it soon and it was just a phase he was going through, one day he would meet a nice girl and everything would change and be “normal” after all no son of theirs could be gay, could he? No, that just wasn’t an option to them he would grow out of it soon, just a phase he’s going through. But just in case they were wrong, they had arranged for him to stay with his aunt in America for the summer, she was a very staunch Baptist and she would definitely sort him out. “Cause we are beautiful no matter what they say yes, words won't bring us down.”

  It was a Saturday afternoon and Roger was getting ready to go out for the night, he'd already had his bath, shaved his legs and moisturised his skin and as he sat in front of his dressing table looking into the mirror he thought that soon he would be able to be the person he'd always known he was. As he plucked his eyebrows and chose his make-up he was thinking about a conversation he’d had with his aunt in America, she'd told him how she used to be a Baptist but since her marriage had ended in divorce, things had changed. She'd not been able to talk to her brother about it because he seemed so proud of his little sister; being a “good church goer and leading her life according to the good book”, he seemed to blame the whole divorce thing on her ex husband, which wasn’t entirely true, but his little sister could no more do anything wrong than his son could be gay. Life in America was going to be good for Roger, it was only going to be 5 weeks this time but he and his Aunt had already talked about a longer stay, one with a definite purpose to it. How good life was going to be in the future once he'd left home and rid himself of his suffocating parents,

  “We are beautiful in every single way yes, words can't bring us down”

  'Roger, Have I got to come up there!'

  Placing the wig on his head and slowly brushing the hair with long soft strokes he sang at the top of his voice “So don't you bring me down today. Don't you bring me down today, don’t you bring me down.... today”

  Chapter 2

  6:50 am and the alarm screamed into action telling John it was time to get up. John opened his eyes and glanced around the room to re-orientate himself, then quickly realising, as he had done every day for the last three years, that he was in bed alone he shuffled across to the other side of the bed to where the alarm was. 'Shut the fuck up' he muttered, reaching out an arm and smashing the screaming machine heavily on the top, instantly silencing it.

  The Alarm stood next to a picture of John and his wife on their wedding day, smiling happily as they set off in married life together, as his hand rested on the top of the alarm his fingers gently touched the picture frame. 'till death us do part' he thought.

  He closed his eyes again and laid back on the bed 'I wish' he said, but then stopped short, he’d made that wish every day for three years now and it still hadn’t come true, they had only been married 18 months, but now he was alone. Sonia had still been killed in that car crash and he still loved her with all his heart he hadn’t got over it or 'moved on' as some of his friends had suggested. As he lay there and thought about what might have been a tear formed in the corner of his eye. Where would they be now? How many kids would they have? He was certain of one thing, they would still have been as blissfully happy now as they were in those 18 months.

  Suddenly he was bought back to the day by the sound of his mobile phone ringing, he picked it up took a deep breath and answered.

  'D.I. John Dickie' he mumbled.

  'Morning J.D. you up?'

  It was D.S. Ian Cripp, John's right hand man and long time friend.

  'Yeh just about'

  'Good, we’ve got a meaty one, your going to love it, this is really something different. How quick can you get here? 'Ian sounded as excited as a child with a new toy.

  'When I said I was just about up' John grumbled 'I meant I was moving, but I've not had coffee yet and I'm not really awake so what the hell are you talking about and how quick can I get where?'

  'Oh, sorry J.D. It’s a murder, a good one. I won’t describe it over the phone, don't want to spoil it for you, you really need to see it. This is something we can really get our teeth into. Get some coffee down you quick, but I wouldn't bother with breakfast if I were you, it never tastes the same on the way up, and get here a.s.a.p.'

  'Excuse me sergeant I thought I was the inspector, and therefore your boss. Don’t tell me what to bloody do. Not before coffee anyway'.

  'Come on J.D. don’t be a Tit. I know you’re an old git first thing but this is worth it I promise. Bournemouth Pier, see you in about 20 minutes'.

  'I'll be there, but I warn you, it had better be bloody worth you phoning me and calling me a Tit first thing in the morning!'

  John put his coffee on to filter through and had a quick wash and shave, he was thinking about Ian. Nobody else could call him a Tit and get away with it but Ian had been with him through thick and thin over the years, he was actually best man at his wedding. They were both career coppers never having, or wanting, any other job. They took their work seriously but still had a laugh and, importantly John thought, still got a buzz out of their work. Now, as detectives, they both enjoyed putting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle until they could see the whole picture and they both still felt an enormous sense of achievement and pride in what they did.

  'We should've been fucking brothers' John heard himself saying out loud as he reached for his coat having only drunk half his coffee.

  John arrived at the pier as quickly as he could, parking his black Audi on the pedestrian area to the front of the amusement arcade, he could see a real buzz of activity under the pier on the sand below, the whole force seemed to be there cordoning off the beach, keeping back a handful of reporters and spectators that had gathered and generally dashing around like it was a children’s Easter egg hunt. Ian came running up towards John

  'You took your time'

  'You took you're time Sir, if you don't mind!' John scolded Ian. 'I only got half a cup of coffee so don’t push it Ian, not today, I'm a bit pissed off. What we got that's so sodding exciting then?'

  'Come and have a look Sir' Ian said, with the smallest touch of sarcasm, as he led the way to the scene of the crime.

  There John noticed Elizabeth Collingsworth, Forensic Scientist, Pathologist and in John’s mind brilliant, but she was only called in for the big cases so it began to dawn on John that perhaps this wasn’t just another junkie overdose at Bournemouth Pier.

  'Liz, what you doing here?'

  'They’ve called me in for this one John, and I think you’ll be glad of it when you see what we’ve got'.

&n
bsp; John looked at Elizabeth, they'd known each other for years, she was really very attractive he thought and he knew she had a thing for him, but whether it was just not the right time yet or he simply didn’t find her attractive enough they’d never got together, and probably never would, they'd never been far apart either. This morning though her face seemed really quite animated, she wasn’t leaping around like Ian and some of the others but he could tell that she thought this was a great case to work on, something special.

  'OK,' he said half heartedly 'lets have a look then'.

  John and Elizabeth approached the body which had by now been covered in plastic sheeting, John could tell it was an adult from its size but couldn’t see much more than that until Elizabeth pulled back the sheeting to the victim’s shoulders. John could see a man, probably in his early 60s, balding, quite stocky with a large laceration spreading across the width of his throat.

  'Looks like he’s had his throat cut' he said, matter of factly. Murder wasn’t an everyday occurrence in Bournemouth, but he was still trying to figure out why there was such a high level of excitement.

  'Ah but you haven’t seen the rest' Elizabeth replied as she drew the sheet back further to the man’s knees.

  John took a sharp intake of breath as he saw what had been hidden by the sheeting 'Fucking Hell!' automatically putting his hand to his mouth.

  Lying in front of him was a dead man who not only had his throat cut but also had his stomach split from just below the rib cage to just above the pubic area, his intestines and other organs had been removed from the cavity and thrown on top of his chest in an untidy grotesque heap. 'What the fuck happened to you?' John said as he leaned in for a closer look 'God it stinks' then from the corner of his eye he noticed something moving, he leapt back in surprise 'shit what was that!' then something else moved and something else, John realising what the problem was looked at Liz.

  'Jesus Christ Liz, can’t you do something about the crabs?'

  'What sort of a question is that to ask a nice girl like me?' Liz laughed.

  John broke a smile for the first time that day, he wasn't usually as bad tempered, today was just different.

  'I think this is really amateurish' Liz continued as she partially covered the body again,

  'I'm not sure what type of knife was used but it wasn’t particularly sharp, it would have taken a lot of effort and strength to inflict these types of injuries. You can see if you look closely that some of the flesh is torn rather than cut, but I can say that the knife would’ve been quite long because some of the organs are not entirely whole, they’ve been cut though or slashed in some way.'

  'Unplanned frenzied attack then?' John offered

  'Well that’s your job' Liz replied 'it’s a possibility, but let me throw a spanner in the works, I don’t think the cut throat would have killed him, not quickly anyway. And there’s no blood trail leading to here in fact, for such injuries, there is very little blood. I believe these injuries were inflicted post mortem.'

  John looked at Liz in disbelief 'After he was dead? Why would anyone do that?'

  'I don’t know at the moment John, I'm not absolutely sure that is the case until I've done further tests, I can give you the approximate time of death, it was about 5 to 6 hours ago, but I can’t tell how close to death all this happened.'

  'So what are you telling me Liz? This poor sod dropped down dead for some reason then somebody walking along the beach found the dead body but rather than calling us they dashed all the way home to fetch a blunt kitchen knife and decided to butcher him, removing his guts and cutting his throat for the fun of it?'

  'No John that’s not what I'm saying! That's what you're saying.' Liz gave John one of her school teacher looks 'At the moment I'm not saying anything because I simply don’t know until I get him back and take a better look. It’s an interesting hypothesis though.'

  'Bloody hell Liz, I've had some bad days but this guy takes the prize.'

  Liz let out a little chuckle, as she tended to do when John made a quip.

  'I'll let you know as soon as I can John. Now if you’ll excuse me I've got a lot to do.'

  'OK Liz, I'd appreciate some speed on this though, at the moment I don’t know if I'm looking for a murderer or a butcher'.

  Walking back up the beach he caught up with Ian.

  ‘Do we have any ID on this poor bastard Ian?’

  'We’ve got his driving license J.D. His name’s Jeremy Green, 59 years old from Luton.'

  'Any next of kin?'

  'Nothing yet. We're working on it.'

  'Any sign of the weapon?'

  'No, Not yet, they’re still searching but not come up with anything, it could have been tossed in the sea.'

  'Fucking hell, so we’ve got nothing! We don’t even know for sure that he was murdered! Tell them to get their fingers out of their arse's and look harder and faster, I want to start getting some answers.'

  'Alright J.D.' Ian said, a little surprised at how “snappy” John was this morning 'I'll give them a shake up, don’t worry we'll get something.'

  'Right, meet you back at the station then, white coffee, bacon sarnie and a doughnut for me, I'll pay you later.' John headed for his car trying to shake the sand off his feet but only succeeding in shaking it further into his shoes.

  'Sand! I hate fucking sand.'

  Chapter 3

  'Ian!'

  John was standing at the door to his office bellowing and clearly angry about something, everybody just kept their heads down knowing not to cross John when he was like this.

  'Ian Cripp, where the fuck are you!'

  No answer

  'Has anybody here seen Cripp?'

  Still no answer

  'Useless bunch of morons.'

  John turned back into his office slamming the door behind him. A minute later there was a knock.

  'If that’s Cripp come in, anyone else fuck off!'

  'Alright J.D.?' Ian asked politely as he entered the room.

  'Where the fuck have you been?'

  'Sorry J.D., got here as quick as I could.'

  'Well now you've arrived what have you got for me?'

  Ian looked at the bags he was carrying 'white coffee, bacon sarnie and a doughnut' he replied.

  'Aren’t you a Funny Fucker?' John snatched the food from Ian 'listen Ian I'm having a bad day and I'm definitely not in the mood for your fucking about. I was talking about the case you stupid bastard.'

  Ian snapped to attention 'Well Sir, we don’t have anything more than we had 45 minutes ago when we were on the beach.'

  'Well what you doing here then?' John sprayed half eaten bacon sandwich across the desk 'go and find something, your supposed to be a detective, go and fucking detect, get me something to fucking work with!'

  Ian looked John straight in the eye, turned and walked to the door, gently closed it then came back and sat down at John’s desk.

  'Alright J.D. you’ve chewed me off for no reason at all, loud enough for them to hear you in Christchurch, your language today is shit, even for you, you don’t normally F and blind quite so much, your face is almost purple, your eyes bloodshot and popping out of their sockets and I think that vein in the side of your neck is about to explode. So tell me, what the fucks wrong with you?'

  'Nothing’s wrong with me Ian, I just want people to get on and do their fucking jobs!' he took another large mouthful of sandwich.

  Ian stared at John, he knew this wasn't John’s usual behaviour, suddenly a bolt of realisation struck him.

  'Oh Christ John, I'm so sorry, it was three years today wasn’t it? I'm so sorry John, with everything going on I just....I am so sorry.'

  John looked at Ian and tears formed in his eyes 'What you sorry for? It wasn’t your fault' Johns voice had suddenly become softer and the redness had started to drain from his face.

  'And it wasn’t yours either John, you got called into work, it couldn’t be helped.'

  'I should have been driving that night I
an, and if I had it might not have happened, or maybe it would have still happened and I'd have died with her.'

  'John, it was an accident. If you hadn’t been called into work, if it hadn’t been icy that night, if you hadn’t arranged to go to Sonia's parents.'

  'If that drunk hadn’t run out in front of the car!' John slammed his fist on the desk.

  'Exactly John. If none of those things had happened Sonia might still be alive, but they did, and unfortunately, Sonia didn’t make it. But for you to suggest that if you were driving you might have died with her? Sonia wouldn’t want that John, and she wouldn’t want you to think like that either.'

  John sat with his head down, studying the palms of his hands 'I know. Did you know she was pregnant? That's why we were going to her parents, to give them the news.'

  'Yes John, I'm one of the few people that does know that.'

  'Her parents have never spoken to me since, did you know that?'

  'John, they lost a daughter. I don't think they blame you personally but they seem to hold the job responsible, they're wrong, and one day they'll realise it,' Ian paused and leaned closer to John 'It wasn't your fault John and you've got to stop blaming yourself.'

  'I can’t help it Ian, sometimes I just want it all to go away. And that bloody drunk, what did he get? Six weeks in hospital, being fed three times a day and a nurse wiping his arse how fair’s that?'

  'Well he also got the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and probably still needs somebody to wipe his arse, but I know what you mean.'

  John looked at Ian and shook his head 'He can bloody walk Ian, I know he can, he's just sponging off benefits now. Completely bloody unfair.'

  'Agreed John. But don’t get like this, its not you.' Ian took a sip from John’s coffee, 'Tell you what, how about a pint after work? Phil's opening his new place, the Laughing Pig I think it’s called.'

  John feigned looking through his diary 'Well I don’t know, let me just check my diary, hmm, looks like I’ll have to put Angelina Jolie on hold, but I suppose we could re schedule, I'll just have my people call hers. OK, your on.' he smiled 'Now will you stop drinking my coffee and get back to bloody work, find me something to solve this case, I’m sick of telling you.'