The Daughter of Patience

By Stephen McDaniel

Bradley Noris, by all accounts, was as bad as they come. He'd disappeared years ago, and no one regretted his departure. Twenty years later, he walks into the pub in his picture-book English village, and someone decides to right some ancient wrongs.
But he's just the first.
Detective Inspector Tom Quill, battling the bottle and his own searing memories, doesn't need a homicide investigation to make his life more complicated. But when the phone rings, he answers.
As each day passes, the case becomes more tangled and nothing is clear. With no solid leads and no suspects, Quill is reduced to following procedure and hoping something breaks.
When it does, it starts him on a pursuit that may finish everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen McDaniel
• Release date: Jan 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463774847

Stephen McDaniel

Having retired after twenty-five years in the military and fifteen years in the IT industry, I finally had the chance to write. Making that happen involved moving my family, three dogs and seven horses to a small farm in Austria that is as far from civilization as we could manage. And we have loved every minute. I hope my affection for our adopted country shows up in the stories about Heimo Kapeller. It is a wonderful place to live.

Book preview

I sat on the edge of the bed glaring at my left hand. I'd given it a direct order, and it refused to obey. The hand clutched a quarter-full bottle of Jack Black and waggled it like a teasing tart in a strip show. I'm accustomed to pig-headed people, but less familiar with rebellious body parts. I scorned the hand, went over its head, and talked to my arm which responded without hesitation, moving the open flask to my mouth. Not where I wanted it. I struggled to relax, and the arm drifted back to my knee.

These are the things you do in the disembodied, half-in-the-bag time between hammered and sobering up.

The bedside lamp pooled light around my lower body and abraded my eyes. My bedroom, the same one my mother used when she was a child, had only one window. Its two large panes reflected only black, a hard, depressing three o’clock-in-the-morning kind of black when unburdened people slept. I swabbed a thick tongue over furry teeth, prospecting for saliva but finding only cardboard. Whiskey is at least wet. When my arm floated up again, I drank, after which my hand agreed to release the empty bottle to the custody of the table.

Bits of the nightmare, reappearing after an absence of eleven days, had ripped a hole in my sleep. The flames and shrieks and slow-motion chaos seemed more vivid than last time, and the frozen-frame moments when my legs, knee-deep in sucking sand, refused to move more agonizing. A final searing flash of the Revolutionary Guard boy-lieutenant's face as a nine-millimeter round destroyed his throat arched me out of bed and onto the floor.

The whiskey spread its balm, and I strained at the remnants of self-control. The thought of starting a wellness routine again, the exercises, the diet, all the dogged attempts to quell the bloody weakness, made my gorge rise. Last evening had been an aberration, one I vowed not to repeat.

My rationalizations are nothing if not well-rehearsed.

The damn mobile phone bounced and buzzed on the table, the racket sawing into my skull. My hand darted for it and missed, instead smacking the empty bottle which caromed off the wall and bounced on the floor. A second grab succeeded, but I needed both hands to get it flipped open and pressed to my ear.

Quill. My voice sounded like someone plowing gravel.

Good morning, sir, Sergeant Trammell here.

Shit. What?

Very sorry to disturb you so early, sir, but I'm afraid we have need of your services.

Why?

We've had a report of a body being discovered near the village of Upper Turcote. Do you know it?

Where's Whiteside?

Inspector Whiteside is occupied with another case and cannot be made available. I conferred with the Superintendent before calling you. Ass fully covered.

"Tellwright?

Sergeant Tellwright has been notified and is on the way. However, it will take him almost an hour to reach the area.

Where's Upper Whatever?

The sergeant mentioned several landmarks I recognized. A patrol vehicle is on scene, and I have taken the liberty of advising the SOCOs and the doctor. Superintendent Fitzwalter was quite adamant you should attend.

How the hell did anyone find a body in the middle of the night?

The call was anonymous, made to the emergency operator. I have no further information. May I inform the patrol you will arrive by 6:45?

What time is it?

It is 6:15, sir. The hint of reproach made my teeth grind.

I'll be there. I dropped the pocket-sized purveyor of pain on the table and rubbed my eyes. That last gurgle of whisky started an altercation with my stomach and commenced to retreat toward my mouth. I made it to the loo in a stumbling rush and ceased to think about mundane matters such as bodies.

There is nothing quite like the trembling, hollowed out feeling of a massive hangover after you've tossed your cookies. Your heart pounds, your head is in a vice, and you not only reckon you'll die, you hope it’ll be soon. This misery settles in for hours until your system purges the alcohol. Drinking water helps, but your belly has to be on board with the idea.

I made a half-assed attempt to get myself in order, giving particular attention to the whisky-and-bile breath. Never do to show up half-cut. A cold-water wash, a pint of mouthwash, a comb through sweat-slicked hair, and I hoped I might slip through. No one was expecting a debutante, anyway.

While I fumbled at the basin and stared at the grey face squinting in the mirror, I finally became aware of the old house groaning and squeaking. The wind was up and with it, rain. The house is brick and has weathered every storm for a hundred years, but never without protest. I don't know where all the noise comes from. Maybe the old pile is just bitching about the climate like everyone else.

I dressed in whatever clothes I could dredge up from a heap on the bedroom floor. They probably smelled, but my nose wasn't working any better than my hand. Coffee or orange juice came to mind, but my belly advised against them by rolling like a trawler in the North Atlantic. At the front door, I grabbed a heavy fluorescent coat with the word Police stenciled in black letters fore and aft and struggled into it.

And felt a tiny click in my back. I wondered if the biggest shell fragment was moving again, if paralysis would finally kick in when it worked its way into my spinal cord. Gritting my teeth, I dragged the solid oak door inward, and a gallon of wind-driven rain bucketed into my face.

The gale forced me to lean into it, and I wondered for the twentieth time why I'd never bought a rain hat. By the time I got the car door open, another pint of icy liquid had trickled down the back of my neck. Ugly as it was, the cold and wet helped with the hangover. I backed the car into the lane and pointed myself toward Cleeve Hill.

The blacktop was rain-shiny, and the headlights bounced off the surface into oblivion. I knew this section of the route well enough to stay in the road, and there was the merest hint of light in the eastern sky. As I climbed, the rain slackened, and the wind rose.

My curiosity about the discovery of a body at this profane hour began to warm up along with the heater in the car. The caller placed the victim in a field. Either someone was stumbling around in the dark during a nasty storm which seemed implausible, or the anonymous caller knew more than he or she let on. That pointed to homicide.

For some reason, casual passersby seldom discovered murder victims, although they and their dogs were notorious for finding shallow graves. Someone associated with the crime scene or the victim had opened all the cases I could recall. Six weeks ago, a young woman who was worried about her brother flagged a patrol car. When the officers got no response at the man's house, they broke in and found a blood-soaked bed and a corpse in the bathtub beaten into an unrecognizable pulp. We arrested two drug dealers within a week, all as predictable and banal as the change of the seasons. But this call aroused a prickle of interest. It might turn out to be simple, but it was out of the common.

My stomach continued to lurch as I followed the curves into the hills. Upper Turcote, as described by Trammell, resembled a hundred other Cotswold hamlets. Tucked away in an obscure valley with one road leading in and the same one coming out, I imagined stone cottages surrounding a village green, their thatched roofs overlooking the community like beetled brows on old men. There would be a pub on one side and a post office-cum-village store on the other, and somebody would have draped an ornamental chain around the green.

I hoped the patrol car would be visible when I got close.

It was. The flashers sliced through the gray-blackness as I crested a small hill, and I slowed coming down the grade. The car, placed diagonally across the road, blocked both lanes, but there were no other vehicles there yet. I pulled onto the verge.

I shoved the car door into the wind and received another dousing. As I leaned against the car and pulled on my wellies, an officer attired in foul weather gear approached, and recognized me.

Morning, sir, he said, holding onto his cap. Bit of a howler, isn't it.

Just perfect. I tried to raise my voice, but the wind forced its way down my gullet, and I made do with a croak.

He understood and grinned.

I turned my back to the gusts. What have we got?

The grin dissolved. Looks rather bad. Body of a white male. When you first see it, it looks like he's sitting up against a tree. Then, in close, you can make out he's been tied to it.

How far and where?

He pointed. There's a farm track about thirty yards ahead on the right. The body is another thirty yards up that track. My partner is trying to put up some crime scene tape.

I nodded, my throat too raw by now to fight the wind. I jammed my hands into the huge coat pockets and started up the road. Normal procedure required us to stand by until the Scenes of Crime Officers had examined the area for evidence and the divisional surgeon had certified death. But I doubted anyone was going find tiny fibers or blood spatter or bits of hair for DNA analysis, not in this weather. And a body tied to a tree - if he wasn't dead already, he would be by the time the doc got here.

Daylight poked fingers through the clouds, timid as a mouse at a banquet. I could see the field track well before I came to it, a muddy churned up morass of tractor marks in the otherwise weedy green of the roadside. Thick forest bordered the track on one side, and a gurgling drainage ditch and dilapidated corn field limited the other. Crime scene tape tied between a tree and a fence post billowed and snapped.

I scanned the ground for anything that might be evidence, but between the rain and lack of light, I saw nothing useful. I ducked under the tape and started up the forest side, placing each foot on the slippery autumn leaves with as much care as I could manage. The tire tracks led uphill, and the slope was enough to cause me to suck in a lot of wet oxygen. Head down and panting, I caught another flash of tape just before I ran into it.

Trees, close set and tangled in undergrowth on the way up, thinned as I came up to a plowed field. The tractor ruts faded out, and an ancient post-and-rail fence meandered away around the field's perimeter. The farmer hadn't bothered with a gate. On the other side of the fence, a lightning-blasted pine reared up like a spike, the only object not flailing in the wind.

I marked the surroundings but didn't really see them. What I saw was a man, dressed for the weather in what appeared to be a brown Barbour jacket, and sitting slumped in front of the tree. His legs spread wide and his arms hung awkwardly down, the wrists in the mud and the hands palm up as though questioning his fate. The head tilted at an inquisitive angle. Mine canted over at the same angle as I studied the white, wet features.

Someone spoke from my right, and I jumped a foot.

The other patrol officer said, Very nasty, sir. I've had a look from the rear, though not too close. He's sitting that way because there's a rope around his neck. It goes up through that fork and it's tied off on the other side.

I'd stopped less than twenty feet in front of the man, but I couldn't see anything that helped me figure out how he'd died. I swiveled my head, following the crime tape. The officer had cordoned off a respectable space, but it was apparent no one would collect much evidence from anything but the corpse and the tree. I wanted to get closer to poke and prod, my twisting stomach notwithstanding, but it would be pointless. The scientific jonnies would be here in minutes, and no one would thank me for trampling about.

The officer's radio crackled. He listened, then acknowledged. SOCOs are on their way up sir, and the doctor is here as well.

Thank you. Was it full dark when you arrived?

It was, sir, blacker than the inside of my cap. Tom and me weren't sure where he was. Only had a vague description. We wandered around with our torches for a good ten minutes before Tom spotted him. We called it in and started our drill.

Good job. I'm afraid you'll have to stay here to control access. When do you go off shift?

Eight o'clock. But Sergeant Trammell will brief our replacements and get them up here by then. He's very good that way.

Too bad he's a jerk as well. OK. Do you or your partner know this district well?

Can't say as we do. We're both Forest of Dean. But I think Johnny Kippler, PC Kippler, is from around here.

Don't know him. Ask Sergeant Trammell to find this Kippler and send him up. We need some local knowledge as soon as we can get it.

Chapter 2

Derek Morley, Chief Scene of Crime Officer, made a point of staring at my clothes, raking me from foot to head with intentional disdain. I stared back, hunching my shoulders against his disapproval, daring him to do his worst.

Damn it Tom, you know better than to contaminate a crime scene. Where's your coveralls and boots?

I'll give you five quid if you can find my presence anywhere around the crime scene. Haven't been near the body, haven't walked around, haven't done anything except stand here in the bloody rain. I suggest you see if the victim can contribute something in the way of evidence.

Morley shook his head trying to dislodge water from his glasses and transferred a heavy white case from one hand to the other. The divisional surgeon, Doctor Farnham, had joined us during the exchange. He was a small, brisk birdlike man whose bedside manner was perfect for policemen and dead bodies.

Let it go, Derek. I want to have a look at this one. Might be interesting. He ducked under the tape and strode forward, glancing neither left nor right, oblivious to any traces he might be obliterating. Morley, defeated, set his case on the ground and surveyed the area with minute care.

Farnham stopped in front of the corpse and bent from the waist. Peering at the face, inspecting the rope, craning around to look at the neck, probing gently with latex-covered fingers, he never once moved his feet. Apparently satisfied, he grabbed the right arm and moved it fore and aft, side to side, then placed a thumb and forefinger on either side of the victim's windpipe.

You'll be pleased to know he's dead, he called over his shoulder. Rigor fully developed, but no lividity around the noose. This weather will make it difficult to be precise about time of death. We need to get him to the mortuary as soon as possible and check his temperature. That will be more useful than anything else. As to cause of death, it is not obvious, but there is a hole in the front of his jacket just to the left of his heart.

Morley replied, Give us fifteen minutes and we should be ready to release. He signaled to his colleagues who had arrived with their own boxes of equipment.

Farnham backtracked to where I was standing, while the photographer set up his equipment and began to pan the field. The 360-degree view, a new technique, allowed the investigative team to see what we saw without mucking up the crime scene.

Farnham lowered his voice into lecture mode. He looks to be in his fifties. No blood externally that I could see, and I'm guessing he was not moved or not much until after he died. That hole in the jacket looks very like a bullet hole, but I can't really see inside it. I think the rope was put on after death just to hold him up against that tree, although why anyone would go to the trouble is beyond me. He's a big chap, probably well over six foot, and quite solid. I'll ask Dr. Halperin to do the autopsy.

I thought he was in the States.

Just returned yesterday morning. He was studying new techniques they've developed in Texas. Isn't that your old stomping ground, as they say in the Westerns?

I grunted. The English rarely lost an opportunity to take the mickey. I was often asked which half was the American part, top or bottom, left or right. It would be nice if he could do the PM straight away.

That's why I'm going to ask for him, he probably doesn't have anything else on. I'll be on my mobile if you have any questions.

I remained stationary, listening to the surgeon squelch back down the track. He said, Good morning, Sergeant, and I knew Tellwright had arrived. My eyes wandered up to the top of the blighted pine, and I took a deep breath.

The steady slap of feet stopped behind me. Mornin, Guv. Nice day for it. There was a hint of a chuckle under the rumble.

Simon Tellwright, half a foot taller than me and roughly twice as wide, peered over my shoulder like a curious bear.

Morning, Sergeant. Where did you get to? As the Duty Sergeant for CID, Tellwright should have been first on the scene, and I would have been grateful for the extra time to get myself together.

Down near Stonehouse. Chap coshed his old lady, and the medicos thought she was going to peg out. He paused, and I could hear him swallowing and smell the tea. Didn't though. What's happened to this poor bugger?

Don't know yet. Doc says he was probably in his fifties and a big 'un. He's been tied to that tree by his neck. No idea about time or cause of death although Doc spotted a possible gunshot wound to the chest. Called in anonymously to the emergency dispatcher.

Tellwright squinted at the body. Maybe he tied the rope himself, sat down to die, and shot himself. Clearing the books with the least amount of work - that was his style.

Then buried the gun? There must be simpler ways to top yourself.

The photographer finished his scan and approached the body with mincing steps. He was careful to stay in the doctor's tracks, but he stopped when still a yard away. He first used a handheld video camera to record the body and the immediate area around it, then switched to a 35 millimeter still camera to get close-ups. When he finished, he said to Morley, Anything else, sir?

That should do it. Go around the back of the tree now, then start down the track.

The photographer nodded and began to work his way to the left, pausing with each step to examine the ground. Morley hefted his case and picked his way up to the body. He put the case on one side and opened it, whereupon bits of plastic and paper levitated into the wind and whisked away. Morley said Shit and slammed the box shut.

I felt Tellwright start to rumble. Lovely. Next time he tells me about contamination, I'll remind him of this.

For once I agreed, but I kept a straight face. The rain had finally slackened to an occasional spit. I realized I'd been standing still for so long, my left leg had gone to sleep. I started to shift back and forth to get some circulation. Apparently there's a PC named Kippler who's from around here. Know him?

That I do. A good man.

I told Trammell to send him up. We need to find out as much as we can before we get the team together. And it would be nice if he could ID this guy.

Quill! Morley was waving at me. Better come up and look at this.

I pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and started toward the SOCO who was now kneeling in front of the body. When I got there, Morley sat back on his haunches. I think he's been shot. There's a hole in the front of the jacket.

He gestured, and I squatted to peer at the mark, almost invisible in the dark, wet fabric. Morley said, Put your finger on it and press in.

I looked at him. It was a daft thing to suggest, but the man was nodding, so I put a forefinger to the hole and pushed with the least pressure I could manage. The finger went in about a half inch, then stopped. I frowned, then pushed a little harder.

Something in there. Wouldn't be the bullet, would it?

No, it's a spike. I could just see it with a torch. Got a head on it like a big clout nail.

A nail? Then what makes you think he's been shot?

There's a small amount of what looks like gunpowder residue and scorching on the jacket.

I noticed the transparent tape that had been placed to cover the jacket immediately around the hole. So, someone shoots him, then drives a spike in? Jesus, they must have really wanted to make sure. An image from nowhere struck me. Have you looked at the back of the body yet?

Morley shook his head.

I straightened up, then bent over the corpse bracing my left hand on the tree. The man's back was tight against the trunk, as was his head, which was held in position by the rope. I put my right hand on the shoulder, feeling the rigidity of the muscles even through stiff clothing, then inched my way down his back. It was a tight fit. When I reached a position corresponding roughly to the bullet hole, I felt something and explored around it.

After a moment, I straightened. He's been nailed to the tree.

Morley's eyes went wide behind his Buddy Holly horn rims. That's a new one. Maybe the spike and the rope were done to make sure he was found.

Could be, but it's a bizarre way to go about it. Have you looked for ID?

Not yet. Hang on a tick. Morley started to go through what pockets he could reach. The Barbour had two breast pockets which yielded nothing. The left-hand waist pocket was also barren, but the right contained an object. Morley extracted it with thumb and forefinger and held it up.

It was a metal disk about two inches in diameter, enameled in dark green, with a Roman numeral II embossed in silver. I grasped it by its edges and inspected both sides. There were no other markings. Any idea what it is?

Morley said, Not a clue. He held up a plastic bag, and I dropped the disk into it.

Anything else?

Nothing in the immediate vicinity of the body, and I can't get into his trouser pockets until we move him. The rain and wind will have eliminated almost everything useful, unless we find something weather can't hurt. The only other item of interest is the rope. Need to look at it in the lab of course, but it seems to be a very common nylon cord you can find in any DIY store. It looks quite old, so I don't know that we'll get much, but there might be useful DNA unless the killer wore gloves.

I believe they are now required to use gloves. But hope springs.

We'll be done in a few minutes if you want to get the mortuary people up. Tell them not to approach until I give the OK.

The lack of blood on the corpse could have been due to the rain, or because the man had been killed elsewhere, bled out, then hauled to this spot. The ground around the pine spike was churned up, but there were no identifiable footprints. But as I turned to my left, I could just make out what might have been drag marks in the wet earth.

I tramped back down to Tellwright, who was finishing another slug of tea. He smacked his lips and tucked the thermos back into a voluminous coat pocket.

Any chance of a suicide, Guv?

Very possibly. If we can just figure out how he tied himself to a tree, shot himself in the heart, then drove a spike through the hole while getting rid of the gun, it'll be a piece of cake.

Tellwright massaged his rubbery nose. Put like that, homicide seems a better bet.

I sneezed. A head cold would top off the morning perfectly. Let's get started. You wait here for Morley to finish. I'm going down to the road, and I'll send the mortuary folks up, but hold them here until Morley is ready. The vic is nailed to that tree, so it might take the four of you to get him loose and onto the gurney.

Tellwright, for once, had no sarcastic comment. Guv.

I trudged downhill turning over possibilities and creating scenarios, none of which fit what I'd seen. Only two speculations stood out. If he’d been dragged to the tree, it was either by someone with a lot of strength, or there were two or more people involved. And there was a definite whiff of hatred about the brutality visited upon the lifeless