Shifting Perceptions – Chapter 3
A little sidetrack into a mystery here…This chapter has some graphic scenes of violence in it, so fair warning to all of you faint-hearted readers.
I am a huge fan of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries from BBC, and have borrowed the characters to play with just for fun and at no profit to myself, and I promise to return them unharmed, but hopefully very satisfied...I've never read the Elizabeth George novels, and can't believe anyone would keep Tommy and Barbara apart on purpose, but I thank her for creating them...
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The next morning, Barbara's usual last-minute scramble to get ready for work was interrupted by her mobile ringing insistently on the other side of the flat. Her mad dash to answer it nearly ended in disaster when she tripped over her bag, so it was a very out-of-sorts detective sergeant who answered the phone.
"Havers!" she snapped, without even checking the caller ID.
"Have you left for work yet?" Lynley's voice was neutral, but his rich, smooth baritone put her on the defensive immediately.
"I was just about to! I'm not late, you know!"
"I never said you were," he replied. "Stay there, and I'll pick you up in twenty minutes. We have a case; I just got the call."
Eighteen minutes later, the burgundy Bristol pulled up in front of Barbara's flat, and even though she was ready and waiting for him, Lynley's long legs had him half way to her front door before she could lock up and make her way to the car.
"Coffee?" he asked, handing her a steaming cup, a very welcome sight in the cold, drizzly morning air. The caffeine earned him a huge smile, making it more than worth the effort to stop and fetch it. Funny how that smile could make his chest tighten up just a bit, he thought, as they settled into the classic car and fastened their seat belts.
Barbara warmed her hands on the oh-so-welcome to-go cup, took a sip, and then leaned back into the familiar leather seat with a sigh of contentment. She would never, ever admit it to his lordship, but after all the years of working together, driving to crime scenes, traveling on cases, his car felt like home somehow. The very scent of it was welcoming to her, smelling of leather and amber, vanilla and spice, something uniquely Tommy.
"So what have we got?" she asked, turning her attention back to the task at hand as she sipped on her hot coffee, watching him as he navigated through London traffic.
I don't honestly know that much," he told her. "The victim is a woman, in her twenties. She was found in Richfield Park* by an early morning jogger. SOCO is on the scene, Lafferty's on his way, and that's about it, really. We'll be there shortly."
Tommy pulled the car into the curb when they reached the scene a few minutes later, flashing his warrant card at the fresh-faced young uniform that hurried over to move them along before she realized who they were.
The two detectives ducked under the crime scene tape, and made their way carefully through the dewy wet grass, aware that SOCO had not finished canvassing the area. Havers slipped on the wet grass, and Lynley grabbed her arm instinctively, supporting her just above her elbow.
Barbara could feel the warmth of his hand penetrating through her clothing, her skin, through all the way down to the bone, it seemed. She stopped, staring at his hand on her arm for a second, then looked up at him. His raised eyebrows asked silently if she were all right.
Embarrassed, she blushed and continued on, pulling her arm away from his hand a little more abruptly than was strictly necessary. Being touched by him, even in the most innocent way, always set off warning bells in Barbara's head, kicking her defenses into even higher gear than usual. She squared her shoulders and prepared to concentrate on the job at hand. Work was her usual way of escaping such deep, dark, murky waters.
Lynley sighed as he read her body language and followed her. Lafferty was already at the scene, crouched down next to the body, which was partially draped in a tarp.
"I see you're traveling in style, as usual, Stu," Havers said, nodding towards the helmet at his knees.
"Beat you lot here, didn't I?" Lafferty taunted.
"So what have you found?" Lynley asked, ignoring their banter. Lafferty pulled the tarp further aside, and gestured toward the woman's body.
"She's been dead about 8-10 hours. Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the back of the head. A metal pipe, something like this, I'd say," Lafferty told them, holding his hands about 50cm apart.
"She was hit several times from the front as well, punched with a fist, judging by the bruising I can see. Looks as though she raised her arms to protect her face, that's where these marks came from," the pathologist remarked, pointing to the forearms.
"Was her attacker male, do you think?" Lynley asked.
"Odds are, yes. Whoever did this to her was substantially taller, heavier and stronger than she was, judging by the marks on her and the angle of the killing blow," Lafferty explained as he mimed a downward motion with his arm. "I'm guessing they got into an altercation, he hit her a few times, and then went after her with the weapon when she tried to run away."
"Poor thing, she never stood a chance, did she," Havers said sadly, looking down at the woman's body. "She must be about the same height as I am."
Lynley felt something inside his gut twist up as he thought of his sergeant trying to defend herself under such circumstances, and with a deep breath forced the image out of his mind.
"I take it there was no identification on the body?" Lynley asked. Lafferty shook his head.
"I'll check with the SOCO officers and uniforms, see what they've turned up," Barbara told them, heading towards the highest ranking officer she could see in the nearest cluster of black and white uniforms.
Lynley nodded to her, then turned back toward Lafferty. "Well, see what else you can find once you get the body back to the morgue, and keep us posted."
"Aye, aye, your lordship!" Stuart said with a mock salute. He snapped his latex gloves as he pulled them off, hefted his helmet, and nodded his go-ahead to the morgue transport team waiting to take the body away.
Lynley rolled his eyes at Lafferty as the pathologist left, and then turned to look for his partner, eyes searching for her trademark red-gold hair that always identified her immediately, even in a crowd, but he scanned twice without seeing her.
The image of Havers in danger by an unknown attacker popped back into his head just then, and he had a moment's panic when he couldn't find her, which he suppressed immediately. Idiot! Of course she's fine, she's surrounded by fellow police officers in the middle of a crime scene, for god's sake.
"Havers!" he shouted out, scowling at his inability to find her. He saw the movement before he spotted her, caught the turn of her head out of the corner of his eye, and then that miraculous smile of hers lit up her face when their eyes met.
No wonder he had trouble spotting her, he thought, realizing that her normally unmistakable hair was secured behind her head in a sleek ponytail, which had become trapped inside her coat. He hadn't paid any attention when he'd picked her up this morning. She headed toward him, and he met her halfway.
"I couldn't find you, with your hair tied back like that," Lynley grumbled. Before he could second-guess his action, he reached out and pulled the elastic band out, registering in passing how silky soft her hair was as he did it.
Havers grinned at him, her early mood forgotten. "Well, who's a grumpy bastard today, even after his first coffee?"
Lynley's tension eased a bit, relieved his partner had taken his action as she did, given that it was somehow…inappropriate. They had worked together for – he worked the maths in his head; had it really been two years since Helen died? – nearly ten years now. They had been to hell and back for each other.
Barbara had been demoted, he had been wrongly accused of murder, she'd been shot, he had drowned his sorrows in the bottle for months after Helen's death until she finally dragged him back to reality, and through it all, with all they were to each other, there were certain boundaries that simply weren't to be crossed under any circumstances.
Except now it seemed the boundaries in his head, the ones that kept Havers in her place, where she belonged, as his partner, his work partner, well, those boundaries were now completely blurred for him. Perhaps blurred to the point of non-existence, and that frightened Tommy Lynley deeply.
Havers' tug on his coat sleeve brought him back to the here-and-now. "Sir? Are you there?" He focused on those wide green eyes, and nodded.
"Let's walk through it, talk through what might have happened while we wait for them to finish searching the park, yeah?" she said as she led him toward the edge of the park.
"Let's say she lived in one of the flats that surrounds the park. She gets home a bit late, she's been out for a drink with friends, or maybe she's a student who had a late class," Barbara suggested.
"All right then," Lynley agreed. "She gets off the bus late, starts to cross the park in a shortcut to her flat. She sees someone at the edge of the park, maybe someone she knows, maybe not…"
"Exactly! He follows her, they have an altercation, he hits her, and she runs for her life across the park, trying to reach the safety of the lights, the traffic, her flat, on the other side of the park, but he catches up to her…"
"And it's too late for her, he's caught her. He hits her on the head, fatally. She falls and that row of bushes hides the body until the jogger finds her this morning," Lynley concludes. "All right, sergeant, it's a good working theory, but we've no identification on the victim, no suspect, and no proof of any of this!"
"Well, sir, in all fairness, we've only been here half an hour!" Havers protested. "Let's take it logically. By the position of the body, and assuming she was running toward her flat, I'm guessing she lived in one of those three buildings over there, so I'll organize some uniforms, and we'll start asking questions of the neighbors there. Someone has to have seen something last night, or knows her. Any kind of information will help."
"Fair enough, Havers," Lynley conceded. "That's a good start, and we'll hope that SOCO or Lafferty has more for us to go on soon. I'll head back to the Met, get Winston started on pulling CCTV of the park and surrounds. Can you make your way back on your own?"
Lynley's question earned him the classic Havers' side eye in response, but her answer was innocuous enough. "I'm sure I can manage, sir. See you later."
As Lynley reached the Bristol, he turned back toward Barbara's location, only to see her pull her hair back into a ponytail as she headed toward the uniforms to rally the troops. He chuckled to himself at this as he pulled out into traffic and headed toward the Met, although he wasn't sure whether he was laughing at himself or Havers.
As Lynley pulled into the parking lot at the office, his mobile alerted him to a text. SOCO found handbag ID matches. Vic name Lisa Ramsey. Headed to her flat now. More info soon.
Well done, Barbara, Tommy thought, now we're getting somewhere. As soon as he reached their offices, he set Nkata onto the task of pulling any CCTV footage in the area of Richfield Park, and sat down at his computer to run the victim's name through the police database to see if anything popped up.
The system didn't take long to spit something back at him, and he texted the results to Havers: Vic had restraining order. Domestic violence. X boyfriend, Steven Moore.
A couple of hours later, Lynley was getting frustrated. Nkata's search had so far revealed nothing useful on the CCTV he had managed to find so far, there was no word from Lafferty, nothing more from SOCO, and he was hungry on top of it all. Havers' next text came just at the right time.
Headed back. Made some progress. R U hungry?
He tapped away at his mobile. Starving. Anxious to see your results!
When Barbara showed up, Lynley was bent over Nkata's shoulder, watching him plow through the CCTV coverage, and she had to stifle a giggle. Winston's face was a study in desperation, his raised eyebrows pleading with her: Get the guv away from me, please!
"Lunch in your office, then?" she asked Lynley, holding up the takeaway bag as enticement. He nodded and followed her, shutting the door behind him after they entered his office. He tore into the sandwich she held out to him.
"So, what have you found?" he asked, mouth full of turkey and provolone.
Havers crunched on a crisp from the packet she had torn open on his desk between them before she answered.
"Spoke to the victim's flatmate," Havers said, mouth half full as she spoke. "Turns out Lisa lived in one of the buildings we talked about. The address was on her ID in the handbag, which SOCO found stuffed down a drain at the edge of the park. Maybe the murderer thought she wouldn't be identified if he ditched the bag?"
"At any rate, the flatmate, Victoria Miller's her name, she said Lisa had the lead in a community theater presentation nearby. Lisa was at a dress rehearsal last night, and Victoria didn't expect her back until late, if at all. I guess the theater crew was in the habit of going out after rehearsals, and she thought Lisa had a thing for one of the actors in the production, so she assumed her flatmate had gotten lucky," Barbara said, glancing at her notes as she spoke.
"And does this presumably lucky Lothario have a name?" Lynley enquired, reaching for a few crisps before they all disappeared.
"Victoria said her friend never told her his name. Didn't want to jinx her chances or something like that. I've put a call in to the theater company, trying to get more information, but I haven't heard back yet."
"Did you ask about the ex-boyfriend?" Lynley asked. Havers raised her eyes to the ceiling, and made Lynley wait for her answer while she tucked into her sandwich.
"Of course I asked about Mr. Restraining Order," she said once her bite of sandwich was semi-consumed. "Mr. Moore was quite the problem at one point, but they had not seen hide nor hair of him in about six months, according to Ms. Victoria Miller."
"Well, I think it is time to track both of these 'gentlemen' down and rattle their cages a bit, don't you, sergeant?" Lynley declared. He reached toward the packet of crisps, but his sergeant beat him to it.
"You'll have to be a bit faster than that to get the last crisp, sir!"
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*To the best of my knowledge (aka Google search) Richfield Park does not exist in London. This is intentional, as my knowledge of London is cursory at best!
