Hope to Die

The precise nature of the incident has not been made public, with the Thames Valley Police statement confirming only that ‘Officers attended a property in Wytham on the evening of October 21st, after a serious incident which regrettably resulted in a fatality. Anyone with information about this incident should contact Thames Valley CID on 01865 0966552, or call Crimestoppers in confidence on 0800 555 111.’

More news on this as we hear it.

* * *

Adam Fawley

22 October

08.15

‘OK, settle down, everyone. There’s a lot to get through.’

I guess it’s no surprise there’s a buzz in here this morning. Like I said, people don’t get shot in this town. And certainly not by septuagenarians.

Quinn’s on whiteboard drill. He was hyper enough last night, and he’s giving off so much energy now he looks like a Ready Brek kid. Sorry, showing my age on that one. Google it – you’ll see what I mean. Gis is here now, too, so we’re going to get our first real-life run-up at that division of responsibilities we talked about back when Quinn was first reinstated. It was all very sensible and grown-up, and Quinn was bending over backwards to be positive and reasonable. Only that was then, when all we were dealing with was a couple of muggings and some petty drug-dealing. But now there’s a body, and a possible murder charge, and Quinn’s going to grab all he can get. I know that, and Gis knows that, and right now Gis is the one I owe.

I look round the room again and wait for the noise to settle. There are three new faces here: one replacing Asante, one covering for Somer and one more who’s just arrived today on secondment from PVP (and before you think I’ve gone all Line of Duty acronyms on you, that stands for Protecting Vulnerable People. From domestic violence and child abuse to modern slavery. It can be a brutal brief and you have to be tough to hack it). We’ve been a pretty tight-knit team these last few years so this is a lot of new blood in one hit. But hey, maybe that’s a good thing.

‘Right, before we start, for those of you who haven’t worked with me before, we have two DSs on this team, DS Quinn and DS Gislingham. On a big investigation like this we’ll work to the standard model of a Receiving DS, who collects and reviews evidence, and a Resourcing DS, who allocates tasks based on what we find. In this case it makes sense for DS Quinn, who was on-scene last night, to take on the former, while DS Gislingham will do the latter. Is that clear? Speak now or forever hold your peace.’

A couple of nervous laughs (the newbies) and some intrigued side glances at Quinn (old hands, like Ev).

‘OK,’ says Quinn, as I sit back down, ‘this is where we are right now. The incident took place at approximately 9.45 last night, at Gantry Manor, Wytham, home of Richard and Margaret Swann. There was a 999 call from a member of the public at 9.52 but there were problems with the phone line so at that stage the operator wasn’t clear exactly what we were dealing with. Turns out it was that.’

He gestures at the photos pinned to the board. They’re not for the faint-hearted. I, for one, am very glad I don’t do cooked breakfasts.

‘As you can see, the vic had been shot in the face at close range, and as at now we have no idea who he is. There was nothing on the body and – to state the bleeding obvious – no chance of any sort of visual ID either. Both the Swanns are claiming he broke into the house and Richard Swann says he threatened him with a knife when he went downstairs to confront him. There’s some damage to the back door and Swann has quite a deep cut on his right hand. A blood-stained knife was also recovered at the scene, still in the dead man’s hand.’

He pauses, looks about. ‘So, on the face of it, their story makes sense. Only it doesn’t end there. Not by a long way. Because we had a rush job done on those prints and they are not, repeat not, in the system.’

A ripple round the room now.

‘As we all know, it’s extremely unlikely that a habitual housebreaker wouldn’t already be in the system. So either we’re looking at a complete rookie who got unlucky, or –’

‘– he’s bloody good and has never been caught,’ finishes Baxter grimly.

Quinn looks across at him. ‘Which I don’t buy. Not for a nanosecond. He wasn’t even wearing gloves, for Christ’s sake. And there’s no evidence he went looking for stuff to nick – there are no prints anywhere else downstairs. Even if we believe Swann’s cock-and-bull story about him being after the money in the tea caddy it makes no odds – there were no prints on it.’

‘More to the point,’ says Gis, ‘there are none on the back door either, even though, as DS Quinn just said, the so-called intruder wasn’t wearing gloves. And yes, I suppose he could have wiped the door down as soon as he got inside – hands up anyone who reckons that’s a runner?’

No one moves.

‘Which leaves us,’ says Quinn, ‘with rather a lot of questions.’