One for the Team Ch. 05

Chapter Five - The Cottage

May 1986

Detective Sergeant Archie Sanders and his partner Detective Constable Sandra Tingle had stopped at a layby on the A12 near Mountnessing and were drinking tea purchased from the take away food van and smoking cigarettes.

"This is the worst cup of tea I think I've ever had," Archie Sanders poured most of his drink onto the cracked asphalt.

"Shouldn't we get a wriggle on Archie?" Sandra Tingle tossed her styrofoam cup into an overflowing bin.

"SOCO will want the scene for a while and the local wooden-tops will keep the vultures away. Lucky for us the university sits on private land so entry is easily controlled," Archie replied, studying the glowing tip of his cigarette.

He dropped the half-smoked gasper into his cup and listened to it hiss as the remaining dregs of his tea snuffed it out.

"Alright Sandra; let's go," gravel crunched under their feet as they strode over to the Metropolitan Police issued Ford Granada.

Archie looked around the layup and saw three lorry drivers lined up at the food van, no one was looking their way. Sandra was walking ahead of him a pace or two and he reached out and grasped the crook of her arm and spun her around and stepped into her. He kissed her, holding her close as he softly squeezed her buttocks through her drab navy-blue skirt.

Sandra struggled and pushed him away.

"For fuck sake Archie! Anyone could see us! We're on the job for fuck sake!" she smoothed her skirt and looked angrily at him.

"Who's going to see us and who cares if they do? We're a long way from London; no one knows us," Archie grinned that infectious boyish grin.

"We're on our way to a murder scene," Sandra admonished him.

"It's just the sight of you with your hair pulled back in that awful bun, that shapeless suit, those thick blue tights and those scuffed low heels gets me going," Archie smirked, reaching for the door handle.

Sandra was used to his sarcasm. They had been partners for three years and had begun their affair in earnest just over a year ago.

"Get in the car you muppet, we've taken too long already," Sandra opened the door and slid into the driver's seat, smoothing out her skirt under her.

The skirt was knee-length and didn't show much leg but she was self-conscious about Archie's comment about her thick, dark-blue tights, flat shoes and rumpled dark woollen suit which she wore for efficiency. She was a police detective on the job and fashion had no place for the practicalities of policework.

As they re-entered the A12 Archie Sanders opened the slim file on his lap to review the case.

"This is one strange fucked up case. If there wasn't a bunch of toffs involved the locals would have it and they would be welcome to it," Robert tapped the file with his biro.

"If the tabloids get hold of it they will have a field day," Sandra Tingle said around an unlit cigarette.

She slammed the cigarette lighter into the socket and waved the packet at Archie who took one.

"You're a bad influence Sandra, I told Pauline that I was giving up," Archie reached for the lighter and held it so Sandra would light up and then put the hot coils to his own cigarette and puffed.

"I don't want to know what you and Pauline discuss at home," Sandra stared frostily out the window.

When they'd started their affair they had agreed to limit conversation about their respective partners. Both felt guilty about cheating but neither was prepared to cease their relationship which had started as a fling whilst conducting a police training course in Liverpool and developed into something that neither of the two was prepared to put a name on, nor resist the temptation of continuing at every opportunity.

"So... Chelmsford College... university boarding school for the entitled and a couple of scholarship students. The place looks like a throwback to something out of an Evelyn Waugh novel," Archie continued.

"Just look at the place," Archie pointed out the windscreen.

They were approaching the two granite pillars from which hung foreboding wrought iron gates. There was a panda car parked at the entrance and a WPC checked their warrant cards before opening the gates to let them through. She spoke into a police radio announcing their arrival to police at the scene.

Archie shivered as they drove up the gravel driveway to the large brooding grey granite building. Across the manicured lawns, and playing fields he could see a few outbuildings on the edge of the dense woods. There was a small assemblage of police vehicles including the white Transit van used by SOCO outside of one of the buildings. A PC standing in the middle of the driveway waved his white gloves directing them to follow the ruts cut in the lush grass caused by the tyres of police vehicles driving to the crime scene.

"We're supposed to visit the Headmaster; one Francis Lister, before we begin our investigation," Sandra said.

"Fuck the headmaster. I know how these places operate. They have a strict pecking order and he will want to control where we go, who we interview and what we do. We'll let him know it's our investigation and we'll run it how we damn well please," Archie tossed his cigarette out the window.

"You'll get him offside, he won't cooperate as fully if we antagonise him," Sandra commented.

"He'll call the Chief Constable and complain. He'll use the public school old boy network but fuck 'em; I'm not going to be led around by the nose by a bunch of upper-class, entitled wankers," Archie unbuckled his seat belt as they pulled up next to the SOCO van.

"Say what you mean why don't you Archie," Sandra smiled to herself as she set the parking brake and turned the motor off.

"Detective Constable Raymond Smith, Chelmsford police," a tall skinny man offered his hand first to Archie and then to Sandra.

"This is a strange one. Not even sure it's a murder... I don't know what it is. SOCO would like to show you what they have in situ before they remove the body.

Detective Constable Smith led them to the SOCO van.

Unlike what is portrayed on American television, Scene Of Crime Officers and their CSI counterparts do not attend crime scenes dressed in Armani and Gucci with flamboyant coiffed hair and big pistols strapped to their sides. Nor do they solve cases. They gather and interpret forensic evidence and to them the crime scene is sacred.

Archie and Sandra were issued with disposable Tyvek full-body suits, over-boots and surgical gloves. They followed Detective Constable Smith down a pathway to a ramshackle small brick cottage. He left them at the door and they stepped on rubber pavers laid from the door to the crime scene.

The interior of the cottage was not as bad as the exterior. The power was on and as they stepped into the kitchen it was obvious to them that so was the water. The kitchen looked like it had recently been used even though the furniture and fitting were old and decrepit. There were crisp packets, bottles of pop, cans of beer and spirit bottles on the countertop and a stack of cardboard cups in one corner.

They continued through to a small reception room furnished with a musty old sofa and two armchairs and a scarred coffee table with an overflowing ashtray, open beer cans, and styrofoam cups scattered on it. A small television with a VCR connected to it sat atop a board supported by wooden beer crates. Archie walked over and looked at the small collection of video tapes beside the VCR and studied them briefly.

"Porn. Well it is a male-only college so that's not surprising," he commented.

"Looks like it's some sort of party house; there has definitely been a party here recently."

"Don't they have house common rooms for that kind of thing? You know... pissed young men full of Newcastle Brown Ale singing bawdy rugby songs, bullying the weaker and less entitled lads?" Sandra knitted her brows.

"The college has four houses: Lion, River, Crozier and Bridge; but I'm sure the house rules forbid pornography and drinking would be somewhat controlled. Look over there," Archie pointed to a makeshift bar set up in the corner.

They followed the crime scene tiles into a corridor that gave access to four small rooms: two bedrooms, a toilet and a bathroom. The carpet was faded and threadbare, the wallpaper was ripped, bleached, and mouldy and some sheets were hanging loose.

"What a shithole," Archie sighed, looking around.

They heard muttering and footsteps coming from one of the bedrooms and they made their way to the door and knocked softly.

A small women encased in Tyvek came over to greet them.

"Sarah Pheffington; senior scene of crime officer," she smiled but didn't offer her hand for obvious reasons.

"Follow me," they trod carefully over to a large bed.

The bed was old but the bedding was new. Lying in the middle of the bed was a young woman who was obviously deceased.

Despite the pallor of her skin they could see that she was very pretty with carefully applied makeup and black, shoulder-length hair styled into a bob with a fringe that rested on her brows. She was lying on her back and was wearing a cerise satin blouse and a black leather miniskirt. Her legs were sheathed in expensive fully-fashioned flesh-toned stockings and her feet shod in black stiletto high heels. Her arms were spread imperceptivity and slightly curved with the palms facing each other in a position described as Demi-seconde in ballet. Sandra Tingle noticed the blood-red fingernail polish through the plastic bags that SOCO had put over the deceased girl's hands.

Her legs were spread rather lewdly, her stockings were laddered and her skirt and blouse were stained and her skirt rested at the top of her thighs, bunched up a little.

"Was she posed?" Sandra asked.

"We don't know. This is the position she was in when we arrived and the groundsman who found her and the attending PCs claim that other than checking her for signs of life they never touched the body," Sarah Pheffington replied.

"We photographed her of course and then did some preliminary forensics so we have moved her. I had her put back into this position so you could see how she looked when she was found."

"Cause of death?" Archie asked.

"We won't know until the coroner does the autopsy but to me it looks like strangulation or suffocation. There are signs of conjunctival and facial petechial haemorrhages but they are common to both causes of death. There are no signs of any serious wounds to the body," Sarah Pheffington pointed to small bloody contusions in the woman's eyes.

"There is some bruising around the neck but that might be the result of rough sex or it could support the strangulation theory."

"Sexual assault?" Sandra Tingle asked.

"Well that's where it gets interesting. You can see how provocatively she's dressed and her skirt had been hiked up but you'll be surprised when I show you this," Sarah reached into a soft carry-case and brought out a large torch.

"Lights please Jim," she called out to the SOCO photographer who was standing by the door.

The window had been covered over by tarpaper so when Jim switched out the light and closed the door the room was pitch black.

Sarah switched on the torch which turned out to be a high intensity ultra-violet light. She trained the light on the woman's body, starting at her feet and working her way upwards. As soon as the light got to the woman's thighs, tell-tale fluorescent splotches began to appear. The tops of her thighs seemed to be soaked.

Sarah lifted the woman's skirt higher. The crotch of her knickers was one big iridescent splotch.

"Help me roll her over," Sarah asked and Archie assisted.

The back of the woman's panties glowed eerily under the UV light.

"Christ!" Archie said disgustedly.

"I'll have to test it but surely you can smell it," Sarah trained the light around the scene.

Both Archie and Sandra recognised the musty smell of semen but they had originally thought it was just the mustiness of the cottage. The bed clothes were covered with phosphorescent stains. Some glowed brightly; others were faint. There was even trace evidence on the floor rug.

"The bedding in the second bedroom yielded the same results," Sandra explained.

They rolled the woman onto her back and Jim turned the ceiling light on and Sarah switched off the UV light and put it away.

"That's a lot of semen if that's what it is," Sandra commented.

"First off I need to confirm that it is semen but I'm ninety-nine percent sure. But that's not the most interesting part. This is," Sarah entwined her fingers in the dead woman's hair and gently pulled at it.

It came away in her hand. It was a wig. The woman's actual hair colour was brunette; she had a collar length, shag-styled pixie-cut with a soft fringe.

"And that's not all," Sarah lifted the woman's skirt out of the way and pulled her knickers down at the front.

The young woman had a penis.

"Jesus Christ!" Archie stepped back from the corpse.

Sandra was speechless.

"Tingle; with me now!" Archie stormed out of the room.

He led Sandra out of the cottage to a small copse of trees and fumbled for his cigarettes inside the Tyvek bodysuit.

They both lit up and drew smoke into their lungs before Archie spoke.

"I thought this was going to be pretty simple. Some over-privileged toffs lured a brass or a girlfriend to an on-campus party and one of them either got carried away or deliberately killed her," Archie was walking in a small circle talking as much to himself as Sandra.

"But this... this is going to be a shit sandwich!"

"First we need to establish the identity of the young woman. Is she a student? Is she a local? Or is she a prostitute whose services they paid for?" Sandra speculated.

"What if they thought they were paying for the services of a woman and one or all of them find out that she's a tranny and they lose it and kill her? The same hypothesis could apply if they had invited what they though was a girl down here to party and then found out she was trans," Sandra theorised.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves. First thing we need to know is if she's a student," Archie sounded resolved.

"Detectives! Please come back inside a minute," Sarah Pheffington called from the cottage doorway.

"What now?" Archie hissed as he strode back to the cottage with Sandra following behind.

"In here," Sarah pointed to the wardrobe in the room where the body had been found.

Ian the photographer had just finished taking a series of photographs of whatever they had found in the wardrobe and Sarah reached into the wardrobe and brought out a handful of small clear plastic baggies. Ian took more photographs and then backed away.

Sandra carefully opened one of the small Ziploc bags and examined the contents with a small plastic spatula while one of the other SOCOs arrived with a small case that the detectives recognised as a field test kit.

Sarah took a sample of the white powder from the Ziploc bag; put it in a phial with the reagent and immediately the pink liquid turned blue.

"Preliminary positive result for cocaine," she noted more for her records than for the benefit of the detectives who knew exactly what they had witnessed.

"The fucking hits just keep on coming!" Archie Sanders puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.

"Jim, take a couple of Polaroids of the woman's face... are we still calling her a woman? Take a couple of Polaroids of the deceased for me and a couple of the bags of white powder. Time to call on the headmaster I think," Archie went back outside and Sandra followed.

They disposed of their protective clothing and wrote up their contemporaneous notes while they waited for the photographs to be taken. Archie called over Detective Constable Raymond Smith.

"Do you know what we have in there?" Archie nodded his head towards the cottage.

"Dead girl; looks like a Tom or a party-girl. Evidence of a party... that's about all I know," Detective Constable Smith replied.

"And that's all you and these wooden-tops need to know. Anything else leaks out before a formal police statement is made I'll hold you personally responsible... get it," Archie growled.

"I was warned that you Met types can be a bit pugnacious; don't worry Sergeant, I don't know anything else and I don't want to know anything else. The Chief Constable called you in for a reason and I'm glad he did," Raymond shrugged his shoulders and gave Archie a pragmatic grin.

"Pugnacious... living near a university has obviously improved your vocabulary," Archie turned away and walked over to the SOCO photographer who was waiting for him.

"Here you go," Jim handed over a small stack of polaroids.

"I'd like some of the trans woman without makeup because I bet you a pound to a pinch of shit that she is a student here," Archie flicked through the photographs and handed them to Sandra.

"I know you would but we can't remove anything from the victim's body until the coroner does the autopsy but I took one of her with the wig removed if that helps," Jim told Archie what he already knew.

Archie and Sandra got back in their Granada and drove back across the field and turned onto the gravel road leading to the university.

"I'm fucking confused here Sandra. Do I call her-her or her-him or what?" Archie shook his head.

"Convention says that a trans woman identifies as female and should be addressed accordingly but in this case we are talking about someone who is deceased. Once we identify the body we'll have a better idea," Sandra was looking at the pictures.

"But fucking Christ Archie, I never would have guessed. She's prettier and more feminine than most women her age, even dead," it was Sandra's turn to shake her head.

Detective Sergeant Sanders and Detective Constable Tingle were not amused when they were made to wait outside Francis Lister's office. When they were finally escorted into the Headmaster's grand office they were fuming.

Archie Sanders stormed over to a huge mahogany desk and dropped the photographs of the dead girl in front of Francis Lister.

"While you're fucking us around playing silly games, that person is lying dead in one of your old groundsman's cottages," Archie stabbed a finger at the polaroids.

Francis arose out of a throne like chair, straightened his jacket and tie and offered his hand.

"Professor Francis Lister, Headmaster of Chelmsford University College," Francis kept his hand extended although Archie made no effort to shake it.

After an awkward silence Francis withdrew his hand and gestured at two seats at the front of his desk.

"Let me get things going on the right foot here headmaster. This is a murder investigation and I won't be treated like a schoolboy. My partner and I intend to fully investigate what has happened here and I expect your full cooperation," Archie ignored the seat the headmaster was pointing at.

"I'm sorry I was on the phone to the board of trustees. I thought it imperative that they knew what has happened Detective," The headmaster dropped back into his seat.

"Detective Sergeant Sanders and this is Detective Constable Tingle and how can you tell the trustees what has happened when I don't bloody well know myself?" Archie spat.

"I merely informed them that there had been a death at the college, that it was suspicious and that the local constabulary has requested support from the Metropolitan Police as they are ill-equipped to deal with the case," Francis replied calmly.

Sandra Tingle could see that this adversarial sniping back and forth was not helping.

"Professor, can you please look closely at the pictures on your desk and tell us if you recognise who it is in the photographs?" Sandra got the interview back on track.

Sandra witnessed a spark of recognition on Francis Lister's face as soon as he picked up one of the prints but the Professor took his time studying each one.