Poor Jack Part 2 of a DI Crosier Mystery

By Edwin Tipple

For an eleven-year-old boy, growing up in 1960s’ England wasn’t always easy – especially if your father had left before you could even remember him and your mother was deranged.

Poor Jack had to cope with his mum every day. He didn’t understand what was happening to her or why she was so stressed. On one tragic day, she thoughtlessly changed all that for him. He would never see her again.

Help for Jack appears quickly, in the form of two lovers from the railway police: the amorous DI Crosier and the ever-willing Sergeant Claire Cardin. They can’t offer Jack a home, but their uneasy solution to Jack’s problem is short lived as further tragedies soon strike. This once seemingly straightforward case of suicide becomes littered with unforeseen difficulties with which the officers have little or no experience – not good when death threatens to put an end to their affair.

A new mystery release for 2017 by Edwin Tipple is both harrowing and disturbing fiction. The railway detective attempts to deal with his family problems on top of those of his job and his love life in which budding women sleuth Claire Cardin takes a key role.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edwin Tipple
• Release date: Aug 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386805311

Book preview

23

A clap of thunder and within seconds the rain began chucking-it down as Crosier bent to touch the cold flesh. It was definitely a human hand, almost certainly a child’s. He decided there was no point in disturbing the corpse in this downpour; it might wash away evidence of how the body had arrived here. Instead, he decided to take shelter under the new bridge and wait the storm out. The trouble was, the rain looked set-in. Why am I so bloody impetuous? he said, to himself. The body would still have been there if I’d stayed on the damn train and drove back here with Claire and Dobbs.

Doing anything in this downpour was pointless, and he began wondering how long the body might have lain there and who the heck it might be.

About an hour went by before the usual train Crosier had caught each day rumbled under the bridge and came to a standstill. George, the guard, lowered a window and looked out — standard practice when a train came to an unexpected halt.

Crosier saw him and shouted, ‘George. George. Down here, mate.’

George looked down, surprised to see Crosier emerging from the bridge, drenched to his skin. ‘What the hell are you doing down there?’

‘I’ve found a body, but it’s too wet to get at it just yet. Do me a favour, nip along to the restaurant car and chuck us a bacon sarnie down will you and a bottle of beer or something. I’m bloody perished out here.’

George’s head disappeared, and a couple of minutes later he stuck it out again and shouted, ‘Catch.’

‘Thanks, George, you’re a good-un. When you get to Crewe, go to my office and check Cardin and Dobbs have left, will you? I asked Joe on the last train, but he’s such a pillock. I don’t trust him one little bit.’

The train began to move off. George waved and shut the window. Crosier set about his sandwich, knocked the cap off the beer and took a swig. The weather was easing off, at last. Now the red tail light of George’s train could be seen for at least half-a-mile.

Eventually the rain had stopped and Crosier just made it back to the sand pile when Cardin and Dobbs arrived in the Morris. They trudged, in their capes, through the mud to join him. Cardin studied the black clouds racing above. ‘I’ve ordered up a meat waggon, as you so nicely put it. Hopefully, it'll be here before this weather breaks again. Have you found what I think you’ve found?’

Crosier showed them where the hand was sticking out from the sand. ‘Better start shifting this lot off for when the mortuary van arrives.’

The three working together soon had the body exposed. ‘Looks like the girl has been dead for some time by the colour of her,’ said Cardin, as she brushed sand off the uniform. ‘She look like the girl we saw on the swing on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure these are the clothes she was wearing.’

‘It looks like her all right. About her height and build,’ agreed Crosier.

‘Jesus,’ exclaimed Dobbs, examining the face, ‘you can only just make out the facial features. Been severely knocked about by the look of it; cut lip and several loose front teeth,’ he said, easily pulling the lips apart and sticking his fingers in the mouth. ‘Lower jaw seems broken, too. If you ask me, I would guess by the feel of the face that death was about two days ago, sir.’

‘Blimey,’ said Crosier, ‘you been studying to be a mortician, Dobbs? Don’t do it. Stay with us lot, lad. Looking at corpses every day can’t be anywhere near as exciting as this job. And look at all the beautiful places we get to see,' he said, taking his jacket off and wringing it out. ‘Now, if she is the girl we saw on Tuesday afternoon, she was swinging from a rope tied to that tree,’ Crosier told Dobbs, ‘until the branch snapped off.’

‘Surely,’ suggested Claire,’ she wouldn’t have smashed her face up so badly?’

‘Might have, if she’d landed face down in that pile of rubble. But if she did fall so badly, how did she manage to get from over there,’ said Crosier, pointing at where the branch with the rope swing had fallen, ‘to here?'

'And get buried under the sand. It's a kids prank gone wrong?’ said Dobbs, confidently.

‘Yet nobody saw she was missing for, two days! You check with the local boys after, see if they've had reports of a missing girl.’

‘Her shoes look a bit odd to me,’ said Cardin, ‘very scuffed for a girl who was flaunting her new outfit. Difficult to say, but I think the uniform is relatively new. Looks big on her, too.’

‘She might have grown into it,’ commented Dobbs.

‘You sure about that, Dobbs?’ responded Crosier. ‘I think she’s done all the growing she’ll ever do, poor kid.’

‘You know what I mean, sir, but my mother always said that about me when I complained my new uniforms were too big.’

‘Lucky you had more than one.’

The sound of the mortuary’s van could be heard easing along Wharton Bridge lane just as another much louder clap of thunder crashed above causing each of them to duck. The van reversed towards the officers. After a short discussion, the driver brought out a stretcher. Dobbs helped him to load the corpse into the van just as the clouds broke, and yet more rain started to pelt down. Soon, whoever the body belonged to, would set off on its penultimate journey.

Once inside the Morris, Crosier shouted above the noise of the downpour, ‘Anyway, it’ll give bloody Stebbins something to do. Get the heater on, Dobbs. I’m bleeding perished.’

‘You’re wrong about Stebbins,’ piped up Cardin. ‘You won’t have heard, skiving off to Warrington all week, will you? Stebbins has retired.’

‘’Bout bloody time, too.’

‘We now have a new pathologist. Goes by the name of Butcher, sir.’

‘So long as he’s a better butcher than Stebbins, I don’t care what he’s called.’

They sat silently, waiting. For now, holding a conversation was almost impossible over the noise of the teaming rain hitting the car.

The shower passed at last. ‘Okay, you two. Better start knocking on a few doors. Find out who has been missing a girl for the last two days.’

‘Here, put this on or you’ll catch your death of cold,’ said Claire, handing Crosier his raincoat. ‘Joe thought you might need it.’

‘I always liked Joe. Reliable sort of bloke, don’t you think?’

24

Dobbs hammered on Woodall’s front door while the others stood behind him ready with their warrant cards.

‘Not you lot again?’ said Woodall, when he clapped eyes on the scruffy-looking officers. ‘Three of you now! Must be serious.’

‘We’re checking door-to-door, seeing if anyone’s missing a teenage girl.’

Woodall turned into the house and bellowed, ‘Leslie, come down here a minute. That nice policeman wants to see you again,’ he said, sneering at Crosier. ‘Wants to make sure you are alive and well.’

‘Remember my daughter do you, officer?’

‘Hello, Leslie,’ said Cardin. ‘How’s Jack getting along?’

Leslie glanced at her dad.

‘He’s staying over with Tommy Bates for the weekend,’ pronounced Woodall.

Leslie nodded. ‘He’ll be back Sunday afternoon, I think.’

‘So he’s okay then? Settled in all right, I expect,’ Cardin persisted.

‘He’s fine, so if there’s nothing else,’ said Woodall, easing the door shut before they could ask him anything else.

Crosier and Dobbs turned away, but Cardin said, ‘Hang on a sec. He doesn’t sound very pleased to me. Listen.’

They all stood a bit closer to the front door, straining to hear what Woodall was saying to Leslie. But all they could hear through the closed door was Woodall letting off steam.

‘I don’t like this. I’ve an idea,’ Cardin said, banging on the front door again before Crosier could object.

The grumbling from within instantly stopped, but Woodall began again as he threw the door back. ‘What now?’

Cardin could see Leslie standing at the back of the living room. ‘I was wondering, Leslie, if you could show me your school uniform. I hope you don't mind.’

Both occupants stood speechless for a while. ‘Er, yes,’ the girl said, watching for any reaction from her dad. There was none. ‘I’ll go up to my room and fetch it.’

The three officers looked at each other and then Woodall, hoping that Leslie wouldn’t be able to show them her uniform. A minute later she was back holding a skirt, a blazer and her tie.

‘I like the tie,’ said Claire. ‘Which school do you go to?’

‘The Verdin, the other side of town.’

‘Verdin Grammar,’ said Woodall, with barely controlled pride. ‘Brilliant is my Leslie. Now, if you don’t have anything else?’

No one spoke, and the door was closed firmly in their faces. No matter how hard the officers strained to hear, nothing was being said inside.

‘Good try, Cardin,’ complimented Crosier. ‘There’s something fishy going on behind that door.’

‘Doesn’t smell like cod and chips, though,’ said Dobbs, feeling a bit peckish. ‘Well, it is Friday.’

‘We’ll call in on Mavis next door. Won’t take long then we can go and satisfy your hunger, Dobbs,’ said Crosier, silently agreeing with him.

Mavis was very pleased to see them when she opened the door. ‘Come in, do.’

‘We won’t keep you long. Just knocking on every door to see if anyone’s noticed a missing teenage girl.’

The twins dashed into the room eager to hear what was going on.

‘Well, there’s only