Inspector Robin Templeton walked in, and the group sat up to attention. He was the boss, and no-one grudged him the role. Robin had been decorated by his superiors, had solved the most difficult cases and, best of all, he was modest and always insisted that detection was a team effort. He found a team of five or six colleagues worked best to focus on the cold cases they were dedicated to solving.
“This one is a real challenge, but we’ll be equal to it. On Wednesday 11th November 2015 at around 4.30pm, a 76-year-old widower, James Smith, was walking his dog in Sprowston, not far from his home, when he was strangled.” The Inspector paused to point to two items on the whiteboard behind him: a photo of the elderly victim and a map extract showing both his home and the crime scene.
“The good news is that there was, believe it or not, an eyewitness, a Miss Thomson. She was driving south-eastwards on Atlantic Avenue when she saw, to her right, two men standing very close together. The smaller man fell to the ground, like a ‘rag doll’ as she put it in her statement. The taller man vanished through the gap in the tree line, just here.” Robin pointed to a second photo showing a large gap in the hedge beside an oak tree.
“Thankfully, she stopped. She found the poor man with his dog faithfully at his side and phoned triple zero. The ambos declared the man dead at the scene which we then cordoned off. If Miss Thomson, bless her, hadn’t stopped, this would have been written off as a heart attack. I’ll explain why.”
The group were concentrating eagerly. “There were no signs of external injury. None. It was only when the neck tissues were examined that the true cause of death became known. Subcutaneous examination revealed bruising consistent with death by compression of the neck. Strangulation was the cause of death.”
“There’s much more. The airway hadn’t been blocked, as other injuries would have shown up. Here, there was pressure to the carotid arteries on both sides of the neck. A sleeper hold has been used. ‘Vascular neck clamp’ or ‘carotid sleeper’ are the forensic terms. It produces unconsciousness in ten seconds, but if the hold is not released, death in thirty seconds. This elderly gent had no chance. The only blessing for his family is that he felt no pain.”
“It’s amazing what these forensic pathologists know. He could tell that the hold was applied from behind the victim, a so-called naked rear choke hold, and that the murderer is right-handed because his right arm was used as the dominant arm. Finally, this assailant had been trained. He was not an amateur. As you know, I am always wary of making assumptions but I think we can safely take it that we’re after a man with military or martial arts training. It’s also reasonable to assume that the killer is a local who knew about the victim’s usual dog walking route. Oh, and this wasn’t a robbery. The victim kept his wallet.”
“That’s a lot to digest, so let’s take a coffee and comfort break for fifteen minutes before we resume, unless you’ve anything…”
Jessica interrupted. “Boss, with a rear choke hold, even if the baddie wore gloves, the two heads must have come very close, so the assailant’s skin cells may have been left on the victim.”
“Spot on, Jessica.” replied the boss. “Even though any hope of recovering DNA is long gone, that’s the sort of thinking I like to hear. In fact, the original team had the same good idea: face and neck swabs were taken at the post-mortem. They did find DNA which was not the victim’s, but there was no match on the database. So, we’re after a first offender.”
DC Jessica Jones was the only woman in the group. She had come to the Homicide Squad just three months earlier but was already making her mark. She had proved she could stand up for herself in the predominantly male environment. She had arrived via the accelerated graduate intake route, with a master’s in forensics no less, behind her. The Inspector saw her as a future star of Norfolk Constabulary.
“I don’t suppose the victim’s dog was a Rottweiler and bit the bastard?” asked DS Mark Tomlinson, on resumption.
“Sadly not, Mark,” came the reply. “A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.” A ripple of laughter eased some of the earlier tension in the room. “One of the calmest and mildest-mannered breeds on the planet! The witness didn’t even hear barking. Made me wonder if the dog recognised the offender but who knows.”
With no further questions, Inspector Templeton continued. “On now to the victim. He lived alone in a modest bungalow. His wife died of cancer in 2013. He had no known enemies and there was no bad blood with neighbours. He was employed as an insurance assessor with Norwich Union for almost all his working life. By all accounts he was reliable and well-liked. He retired in 2004 at age sixty-five. His only income was the state pension. He had used up almost all his work pension, taken as a lump sum. From memory he had quite a large mortgage outstanding. In any event, his estate ran to about £50,000.”
“Who stood to gain?” interjected DS Tom Collins.
“There was no will, Tom. He had no children, so everything was shared between his brother and sister.”
“Anything sus, there, boss?” Tom continued.
“Nothing doing, Tom. The brother was in London with a cast-iron alibi. The sister lives in Ipswich. She was very helpful with background.”
Tom Collins and Robin Templeton had been colleagues for decades. They went through Detective Training School together. They had had their moments, beyond the usual banter provoked by Tom’s undying love of Welsh rugby. However, it was hardly friendly rivalry when they had competed for the only available Sergeant’s position in the Homicide Squad so many years earlier. Robin won out and Tom took it very badly, claiming, without any real justification, that Robin had had an unfair advantage. For a couple of months Tom refused to accept the generous hand of friendship from Robin. As time went on, slowly but surely, Tom seemed to thaw, until eventually they were on speaking terms once more.
Robin concluded. “What I don’t understand is there’s no semblance of a motive anywhere. Something has been missed. It must have been missed. We must find it. The file is always open on my desk. We must go through everything from scratch. Let’s get to it!”
“Boss, it seems incredible that this guy hasn’t been caught. How often does someone get away with murder when there’s an eyewitness?” asked DC John Wellington, another team member.
“I agree, John. This occurred in broad daylight. At that time of day, most families may have been busy with other things, children back home from school etc., but it’s still astonishing that our killer wasn’t noticed. He had the confidence to walk away. He can’t be a serial killer, thank heaven, because there’s been nothing vaguely like it in the last eight years. Hopefully, he’ll think he’s in the clear and will slip up. We must solve this.”
The weeks turned into months. The original statements were poured over, again and again. Some witnesses were spoken to for a third time. Another door knock got nowhere. Then a woman in her second statement nominated her next-door neighbour as the killer. The neighbour had been a judo champion in his youth and the team became excited. It turned to dust when it became obvious that the woman had mental health issues. There was nothing more than a ridiculous dispute over a building extension. The boss read the riot act to her, but charging her with wasting police time would have been pointless.
Back at square one, the team struggled on valiantly, double-checking everything, yet again. Not much later, though, their frustration with the Smith case was tempered with success elsewhere.
In late 2011, an eighty-one-year-old widow, living alone, had been found dead on the upstairs landing of her home. The cause of death was heart failure in association with a blow to the head. There was evidence of forced entry by way of a broken ground floor window. The pathologist thought that her shock at coming face to face with the burglar, combined with a fall to the landing floor, was a reasonable scenario.
The Police who originally investigated looked closely at housebreakers known to them at the time, but the modus operandi here did not even begin to match the usual suspects. A couple of drawers had been rifled downstairs but nothing of value had been taken. This had all the hallmarks of an amateur effort. Nor did the DNA collected from the point of entry give a positive result.
Tom Collins had the idea. The offender was a young man attempting his first burglary. The outcome gave him such a fright that he returned immediately to the straight and narrow. What if he had gone astray a second time, years later? It was certainly worth looking at, and, as it turned out, it produced the break the team needed. A man had recently been arrested after a pub brawl. The updated National Database matched his DNA to the point of entry DNA! He had been a mere sixteen-year-old at the time of the widow’s death. The team had solved another cold case and their well-earned celebration lasted well into that night.
Eventually the Inspector called the team together. “I’m proud of the way you stuck with the dreaded Smith case. For six long months you worked as hard as any squad could have. Despite the frustration, you didn’t give up. However, there comes a time when we must call it a day. This one got away, I’m sorry to say. The chiefs on the top floor have asked me to pass on their appreciation. They know that no other team could have done more than you. And, as a gesture of their admiration, we all have the afternoon off!”
About three weeks later, the team heard shocking and sad news. Sergeant Tom Collins had been knocked down as he was crossing a street, and he was in a very bad way in hospital. Apparently, Tom had been distracted by something. The distressed driver was blameless.
Robin made his way to the critical care ward of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital as quickly as he could.
Reaching reception, he enquired after his longtime colleague. “Unfortunately, sir, only close family members are allowed to visit.” The nurse at the desk was polite. Just then, a sad sight caught Robin’s attention.
“Carol, I’m so sorry.” Tom’s teary-eyed wife Carol was being assisted along the passageway by a tall man who introduced himself.
“I’m Richard, Carol’s brother.”
“Sorry to meet you in such circumstances. I’m Inspector Robin Templeton.” They shook hands. “I’ve known Tom for decades. How is he?” Carol burst into tears. “God, I’m sorry, Carol.” Robin felt awful, as Carol’s brother helped her away down the corridor.
Turning back to the nurse at reception, Robin tried again. “I’m his boss in the Police. I really wanted to see him. Could I ask the doctor about him?”
“In the circumstances I’ll call the doctor.”
“Thanks very much.” Five minutes or so later, a doctor appeared. A brief conversation later, Robin was walking beside the doctor along the corridor towards the ward.
“He’s unlikely to survive the night, I’m afraid. We can only keep him as comfortable as we can. Just five minutes, please.” Robin nodded, acknowledging the restriction.
Robin liked to think he was stoical, but he felt himself welling up as he looked ahead. He and Tom had shared so many experiences side by side in their careers and it had come to this.
Tom was connected by so many tubes to a monitor with pulsating graphs. Robin took a bedside chair and watched for a few minutes.
As Robin rose to leave, Tom’s eyes opened, and he spoke softly and with difficulty. “The Smith case.” Puzzled at the mention of that investigation on Tom’s deathbed, Robin could see that Tom was struggling to say more. Robin leaned forward. His ear was almost touching
Tom’s face. Robin heard the faint but clear whisper. “I did it.”
[Image Credit : Photo by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash]
by 
Dave Dempster
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