Thirty-Two
Three days in and we’ve still got nothing.
That was how Sara Xiu had succinctly summed up the -status of their investigation into the murder of Darren Grant; of the team’s fruitless efforts to find any evidence that might put Malky McDougall and his employer in the frame.
Though nobody said as much out loud, everyone from DCI Susan Akers down knew that the longer those efforts failed to yield results, the less likely it became that they ever would.
Even a murder investigation ran out of steam eventually, and it didn’t take much for a fired-up detective to become a frustrated one.
When footage from CCTV cameras at properties overlooking the crime scene mysteriously disappeared, or when an appeal to the public proved useless.
When people who knew things began to forget them.
Or were made to.
Before you could say ‘witness intimidation’, three days had become ten and Miller took no pleasure in knowing he’d been right when he’d talked about how difficult the case was going to be. How the Cutlers and their associates were pretty much Teflon-coated …
‘Well, lots to unpack there,’ Mary said. ‘The good, the not so good and, I’m sorry to say, the frankly atrocious … but I have to start with Declan and Veronica’s slow foxtrot.’
‘What?’ Miller looked up at the mention of his name, tried to blink away thoughts of the Cutlers and pretend that he’d been listening. ‘Oh, right. Well, we’re on tenterhooks.’
Mary used a chocolate finger to point to Miller and his partner.
‘It’s not known as the hardest dance in the business for nothing, but tonight these two came pretty close to perfection.
Certainly as close as anyone in this group is ever likely to get.
The control of body flight and leg action was spot on and, most importantly, the energy of the rise and fall was used horizontally.
’ She drew a line in the air with the chocolate finger.
‘Not sent vertically, the way it is in a waltz.’ She sighed and bit her biscuit in half.
‘The way Ransford and Gloria should have sent it in their waltz.’
As the self-appointed leader of the group, Mary could certainly be dictatorial when she wanted to be – which was a good deal of the time – and was never knowingly tactful, but the woman knew her Ballroom.
So Miller sat and nodded thoughtfully as he drank in her words of praise for his slow foxtrot and tried not to look too smug.
‘No need to look quite so smug,’ Gloria said.
Rather than ask the entire group to concentrate on one style as she would normally do, Mary had chosen to shake things up a little and had allocated a different dance to each couple the previous week.
The results had been mixed to say the least, and Mary wasn’t shy about letting everyone know that, Miller’s triumphant slow foxtrot aside, there hadn’t been much to celebrate.
Having established that Gloria and Ransford’s waltz was not vertical enough, she went on to make it clear that was only one of the things wrong with it.
‘Never hesitate, bend those knees, and maintain your frame at all times. Remember, elbows, elbows, elbows!’ And while Nathan and Ruth had certainly put a lot of energy into their jive, Nathan was still looking at his feet too much, and mouthing the steps to himself.
Miller thought that, as ever, Ruth had shown admirable restraint in not sticking out a foot to trip her partner up as he beamed gormlessly at her and generally careered about the place like a lovestruck baby giraffe.
‘I think she’s definitely coming round to the idea,’ Nathan had said to Miller before they’d started.
‘What idea’s that?’
‘Me and her, you know.’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah. Just a bite to eat or summat, see how it goes.’
As it was, Miller knew that Ruth, having come out of one relationship only a month or so before, had recently begun another, and was currently expending all her horizontal energy on the assistant manager of Superdrug, a bloke named Dean who was ten years older than Nathan and had his own flat near the model village. ‘Well, fingers crossed,’ he’d said.
Mary and Howard had danced a quickstep which, in all honesty, Miller didn’t think was much cop, though he would never have dreamed of saying so, because Mary was …
well, Mary. On top of which, to be fair, neither was exactly in the bloom of youth.
Also, Howard had angina and a replacement hip and both his knees were knackered.
Most of the time, it felt more like Casualty than Strictly.
‘Right, we’ll spend the rest of the session on shadow steps.
’ Mary brushed crumbs from her lap and stood up.
‘Most of you are still failing to adopt the correct position at the correct time. You’re meant to be shadowing your partner, not just …
lurking. I’m obviously not including Declan and Veronica in that, because they just demonstrated it perfectly. ’
‘It’s getting a bit annoying now,’ Gloria muttered.
‘That reminds me,’ Miller said. ‘I saw a perfect example of the shadow position quite recently.’
‘Oh, where was that?’ Mary asked.
‘It was CCTV footage from the murder that never was. Remember that one?’
‘The one that never was because the bloke obviously hit his head on a rock when he fell into the lake?’ Howard said. ‘You mean that one?’
‘Yeah … that one.’ Miller could see that Mary was still waiting. ‘I mean, they weren’t actually dancing and one of them had a knife, but apart from that it was spot on.’
‘It’s actually a cool thing in computer games, too,’ Nathan said.
‘A shadow step. I’m talking here about massive multiplayer online role-playing games like the ones I play.
It’s a skill, yeah? An ability you can earn that enables a player to teleport between shadows.
You’re in one place and then … boom, you’re somewhere else.
So you can jump straight into the shadow of your target. ’
‘That would come in seriously handy,’ Miller said.
Howard nodded. ‘It would definitely up your arrest rate.’
‘Yeah, but you need to be at a certain standard,’ Nathan said, ‘because it’s a talent that only properly experienced players can acquire.
You need to be like … a “warlock” or a “cloudstrider” or, if you’re playing at the very top level like I am, you can shadow step if you’re a “subtlety rogue”.
’ He shrugged, as if to show that this hard-earned accolade was no big deal.
‘I’ve been a “subtlety rogue” for ages, as it goes. ’
Miller watched him glance across at Ruth, clearly hoping that she’d be impressed by his online achievements.
She clearly wasn’t.
Teas were quickly finished off and the empty cups collected. The final, despairing grabs for digestives or custard creams were made before Mary snatched the biscuit tin away, snapping its lid closed smartly enough to take the tips of someone’s fingers off.
‘Got anything good for us in the pub later on, Dec?’ Ransford asked.
‘Well …’
‘Yeah, any more news on the heavy metal sex-assaulter?’ Nathan had been particularly taken by Miller’s undercover visit to the King’s Head and was convinced that, were he ever to join the force himself, he’d be the perfect candidate for such covert operations.
‘I don’t think that terminology’s very appropriate,’ Ruth said.
‘So, what am I supposed to call him?’
‘I don’t know … maybe sexual assaulter doesn’t sound quite so weird? Or perpetrator of sexual assault.’
‘Rapist in waiting,’ Howard said. ‘What he sounds like to me.’
The ex-cop’s blunt and sobering interjection swiftly put an end to the conversation and spared Miller having to explain that no, there was no more news.
No news, no suspects and worst of all no guarantee that what had happened to Sania Malik would not happen again.
Another investigation that wasn’t so much treading water as drowning.
‘What about the murder?’ Mary asked. ‘That poor soul who was stabbed to death up near the Burton’s factory?’
The last time they’d gathered in the Bull after practice, Miller had told them about Darren Grant’s murder.
The basics, at least; holding court without mentioning any names and not actually saying any more than had already been printed in the Gazette.
Having been written by a journo with police sources, the front-page story from a week before had hinted at the involvement of organised crime, which had got the sleuths of the Dance Buddies, amateur and formerly professional alike, predictably excited.
It quickly became apparent that they still were.
‘It was some sort of gangland hit,’ Nathan said. ‘Had to be.’
‘Sounds highly likely,’ Howard said.
‘Maybe the bloke was a grass.’ Nathan turned to Ruth as though about to explain.
‘I know what a grass is,’ she said.
‘Yeah … obvs. So, anyway, they do him in as a warning to anyone else that might be thinking about talking to the police.’
‘They’re sending a message,’ Veronica said.
‘That’s it,’ Nathan said. ‘A message. Now, I can’t say for sure, but I know this is what sometimes happens, so there’s every chance they’ll have killed this bloke, then cut a bit of him off.’
‘Really?’ Gloria looked disgusted. She turned to Miller for clarification as she reached for Ransford’s hand.
‘It’s symbolic,’ Nathan said. ‘These gangland types, they cut something … important off the victim and stick it in his mouth. A message, like Veronica said.’
‘Symbolic, because he’s been talking too much?’ Gloria said. ‘You mean his tongue?’
‘Well—’
‘They cut the tongue out of someone’s mouth, then put it back in?’
‘No, they cut—’
‘What’s the point of that?’
‘Not his tongue, love,’ Ransford said.
Which is when Miller’s phone rang, and the world shifted just a little on its axis. Miller’s corner of it, at least; a world of small dogs and dead men, of dancing and drugs. Lots and lots of drugs …
‘Miller?’
He recognised the voice, so moved a few steps away from the group until he was sure he could not be overheard.
‘It’s Malcolm McDougall.’
‘I know it is,’ Miller said. ‘You have a very distinctive accent, Malky. In fact, I’m half tempted to parrot it back at you and say, “There’s been a murrrderrr”. Which there has, of course, and funnily enough I know exactly who did it—’
‘Stop,’ McDougall said. ‘There isn’t time for this.’
‘Keeping you from something, am I?’
‘Mrs Cutler wants to see you.’
‘Oh, does she?’ Miller turned to watch Mary herding her dancers into position, putting arms on shoulders and around waists, nudging feet into position.
He saw Ransford whisper to his wife and the look of horror that crept across Gloria’s face as the penny finally dropped.
‘Tell her to call my secretary and make an appointment.’
‘Listen, Miller. I’m not messing about here.’
Something in McDougall’s voice had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t. ‘OK, fine,’ Miller said. ‘I’ll try and swing by Cutler Towers at some point tomorrow.’
‘No, you don’t understand,’ McDougall said. ‘Mrs Cutler needs to see you urgently. You need to come right now.’