The Trail Killer

Seventeen

Bridcutt was clanking in the final full stop of his house break-in report when, glancing over the monitor of the Macintosh, he noticed that WPC Hunter was at that moment striding across the CID room. There was a mute, distracted nod in his direction as she made a beeline towards Gooch's office. In her right hand flapped a sheet of paper; something had just come into the front desk, it seemed.

Bridcutt watched through the slanted blinds as Gooch was handed the sheet, his thick eyebrows scrunched downwards in concentration while he read. Looking once more up at Hunter, he passed the sheet back across his desk, swung his swivel chair in the direction of the exterior window. Reflecting on what he' d just read or else completely indifferent to it? It was difficult to tell for sure.

Lifting himself to his feet, Bridcutt scurried over to the doorway, waited in ambush for Hunter in the corridor outside.

"What's going on?"

The constable froze on her heels, a palm placed over her chest as if to soothe the wild pulsations of her heart. "My age, shouldn't surprise me like that, detective."

Bridcutt beamed down a smile. "Ah come on Gloria, you're young enough to be my sister, surely?"

Hunter's wrinkles deepened as the smile was returned. "Flattery will get you everywhere young man."

Indeed, the sheet of paper was promptly handed over, the information it reported enough for Bridcutt to arch an eyebrow in surprise.

*

Shields could tell just by the sound of the doorbell. Not that polite twin peal which most people employed, apologetic almost of the disturbance they were causing. No, this was a sharp, sudden squeal. A multi-second primal shriek.

It was with a certain trepidation therefore that she scraped back her chair and temporarily parted company with the half-drunk bottle of wine on the kitchen table. "Coming!" she called as she stepped through into the hallway. From the living room came the opening theme tune of Animal Magic, this temporarily drowning out the usual antagonistic fraternal rumblings.

After sucking down a deep breath, she pulled open the front door: just as she'd feared, her former mother-in-law. The first one. The complete bitch one.

Shields twitched her lips into what she hoped might pass for a welcoming smile. "Hi there, Irene." She could only hope the old cow hadn't got wind of latest developments from somewhere.

Though significantly shorter than Shields - significantly shorter than most people, in fact - Irene more than made up for her lack of inches by that permanent glare of hers. It was one chilling enough to make even the most physically robust of beholders feel shrunk and reduced, almost as if they were naughty five-year-olds being confronted by the school headmistress after crayoning over the classroom walls.

"Gone and got yourself sacked, I heard."

Oh.

A town like Branstead, Shields might have known. Word travelled fast - a laser-like zoom soaring down supermarket aisles, along post office queues, over back garden fences.

Craning her neck behind her, she called out to Lee that his grandmother was there. A deflective tactic.

Within a couple of seconds, Lee had come scampering out into the hallway, Jamie following less enthusiastically a couple of paces behind.

"Grandma!"

As Shields shifted a little to one side in the doorway, Irene pulled a dutiful grandmotherly smile. "Well great to see you, Lee." Then, even more dutifully: "You too, Jamie." She nodded up towards Shields. "There's something I need to discuss with your mother, actually."