Chapter Eleven A Busy Time at the Mortuary
Simon Crook was busying himself round the pieces of body parts of Commander Brand. The biggest piece was from the knees to the neck and the rest had been placed in Waitrose shopping bags for want of a better place to keep them out of harms way and shoved in the refrigerated store. It was a puzzling situation and Simon found to his amazement after digging out two long pieces of metal that they were identified to be high velocity shells. Simon deduced that Commander Brand was already dead when he fell in front of the train. Obviously the train didn’t help the situation and Simon wasn’t looking for anything else that had caused death until that moment when something in the body had reflected back in his direction. He immediately got in touch with D.C.I. Wragg on the phone. ‘Chief you’d better come down and see what I’ve found!’ Wragg took just a few minutes to reach the mortuary. Dazzling bright lights made him shield his eyes momentarily with his arms. Simon held up the two shells between finger and thumb and with a pair of tongs he placed them in a plastic bag. ‘You might find fingerprints on those!’ He handed them to Wragg. Simon said, ‘I found them in his back and he wouldn’t have felt a thing so it was obvious he must have been close to the platform edge. The velocity of these bullets would have sent him forward and some reflex would make his arms flail in the air uncontrollably as he fell forward in the path of the oncoming train.’
Wragg remembered what an eye-witness had seen. “It looked as if he did it on purpose, committed suicide.” Wragg didn’t like Brand, but he wouldn’t have wished anything like this to happen to him. What a hideous way to end a life. He was right in his assumption, the killer was somewhere in the station with a high powered rifle fitted with a silencer and telescopic lens.
Wragg was silent with all sorts of things rushing through his mind when he realized Simon Crook was speaking to him. ‘Chief, this is another puzzling situation. He pointed to another body on the next slab he was strangled and was found outside the garage near where the Chief Constable lived.’
‘Oh!’ said Wragg. Simon said, ‘After the ambulance had left the crime scene, our chaps were looking around for clues and apart from two constables treading in dog shit, they found this man outside the garage.’
‘Dog shit you say?’ said Wragg, ‘hmm! That could be a valuable clue.’
‘What about him?’ said Simon,
‘I’m sorry about him. He must have seen the killer and had to be silenced.’ Simon Crook with the help of his assistant lifted the body into the refrigerated unit and closed the drawer.
‘It’s a pity,’ said Wragg.
‘What is?’ said Simon.
‘I’ve got to visit his family and ask someone to identify him, it’s always the innocent ones that get hurt.’
As Wragg was leaving he said to the assistant who was helping Simon in his work. ‘How’s he been – it couldn’t have been a pretty sight seeing those body parts?’ ‘Too right.’ said the assistant, ‘He was in the loo for half an hour and there wasn’t a drop of blood to be seen anywhere.’
Wragg chuckled all the way back to his office. Sat down and looked at his telephone. He had the proof of identity of the man who had seen the killer and he needed to make this one special phone call. Before he could lift up the receiver, one of the staff walked in with an envelope. ‘What’s this?’ said Wragg. ‘I don’t know sir, it was handed to me while you were downstairs and I was asked to give it to you as soon as you got back.’
‘Okay!’ nodded Wragg and the man went back to his office. He sat down and looked round at Wragg and smiled.
Wragg opened the envelope and took out an official looking letter and the letter content made him open his eyes very wide. It read “You will assume the rank of Chief Superintendent with pay, but still have the duties of Detective Chief Inspector.” Wragg put the letter down and stared out through the partition windows, all the staff had stood up and were applauding him, some had come to the door of his office and said ‘Congratulations Sir!’
‘One thing for sure if Commander Brand hadn’t promoted me to Detective Chief Inspector I wouldn’t have been promoted to C.S., – they would have found someone else already with the rank of Chief Superintendent.’ thought Wragg. ‘But it still didn’t explain why Brand had promoted me in the first place.’ It was another puzzle that Wragg was going to find out about in a more serious situation involving his wife.
The telephone on his desk rang shrilly and made him jump slightly. He snatched up the phone. ‘Wragg speaking.’ Wragg listened intently and started to jot down the message. He replaced the receiver as his two cohorts appeared in his office – Sergeant Dotrice and Sergeant Stone. Wragg gestured that they should sit down. ‘I have just had the Forensic Department confirm my suspicion that either Brand or the killer were involved in the Chief Constable’s hit and run. The mention of dog’s do-do made me get the team to inspect the area thoroughly before they left the scene. The brown bit on the platform was also analysed and that turned out to be dog shit mixed with dirt and grass, so it looks like Brand was out to kill the Chief Constable. There were two skid marks on the grass and it seems our killer had followed Brand perhaps, and this is only surmising that this wasn’t what the killer wanted and if he planned something else and didn’t want his plans changed by Brand it was probably necessary for him to get rid of him. Now he hasn’t anyone to feed him inside information of our movements and we know Brand was standing that end of the platform and his shoe still had the dog’s mess in the gap between the heel and sole of the shoe and there had been just enough there to drop onto the platform as he walked to where he was shot.
It was nearing 5 pm and C.S. Wragg dismissed the sergeants and told them to go home. He asked them to report in the morning at 8am as he had a theory and wished for their expertise and input.
Wragg decided before going home to visit his friend, the Chief Constable in hospital. He telephoned first as he had instructed other officers to do to gain access to where his friend was and also he needed to see John Whip to see if there was any change in his condition. He was in another part of the same hospital under surveillance. There were more plain clothes policemen guarding both rooms where Eric Carter and John Whip were in than was necessary, but Wragg was not going to take any chances. Wragg’s confirmation of the facts spoke for themselves. Commander Brand attempting to murder the Chief Constable could only mean one thing. It was a ploy to stop him from asking Eric Carter awkward questions about his sudden promotion and it seemed to be slightly overkill. Not the best choice of words in the circumstances in view of what has happened, thought Wragg, but glad to say the whole plan had backfired. Wragg visited both rooms to find that both men had tubes and wires stuck to their bodies. He made an instant decision to move John Whip into the next room to Eric Carter and reduce the number of plain clothes men to two for each room and one uniformed officer near the hospital reception area. Having halved the force of police officers he went home to a very late dinner.
After his meal he went to his den for a while thinking about the day’s events and imagined what the headlines of the newspapers would be like tomorrow. The murder of Samantha Dodd crept into his thoughts, which he had neglected to investigate owing to the turn of events of major proportions that had peeped over the horizon with such an alarming result. He would give the task to Sergeant Stone with a team of constables of his own choosing to investigate. He then remembered he had earmarked them both for another assignment at 8am tomorrow morning.
His mind was in turmoil and possibly the action of the killer had succeeded in creating just that reaction within himself. He suddenly snapped himself out of his self-pitying mood and said loudly ‘RIGHT! Sergeant Stone can take on the Samantha Dodd file and Sergeant Dotrice can help me with my enquiries regarding the other murders.’ Wragg was so tired he forgot to mention he had had another promotion. Mrs. Wragg handed him his hot cocoa as he emerged from his den and followed her to the bedroom.
