Michael Hillier Hillier

Author of AMR Series. See mikehilliet.com for details.

Award Type
This is the first Charlotte Faraday Murder Mystery set in the present day in Torbay, England. It also contains an interlinked mature love affair between a rich resident and a summer visitor.
The Gigabyte Detective
My Submission

The Gigabyte Detective by Michael Hillier

Prologue

The face of the dead woman in room 307 was still pink and round and pretty. From a quick look at that face, one might have thought that she was merely sleeping. But her body gave the lie to that impression.

She lay on her back, almost in the centre of the double bed. She was naked except for the cream-coloured silk dressing-gown, parts of which covered only her shoulders and upper arms. The legs were apart, and the knees were slightly bent. The arms were lifted towards her head, and the hands that had been desperately fighting to push back the smothering pillow, which now lay on the floor beside the bed, were frozen in the immobility of death.

Detective Inspector Stafford Paulson shook his head. He had never quite managed to overcome the sense of shock caused by the first sight of a corpse, though goodness knows he’d seen enough of them in his thirty-year career. He could never escape the feeling of waste, of the injustice which resulted from the senseless termination of human life.

“Not a bad-looking woman for someone in her late fifties,” said the pathologist chattily.

The inspector ignored Doctor Stevenson’s soft Scottish brogue, which seemed especially noticeable this evening.

“I know her,” he muttered.

“You’re not the only one. Anybody who’s anybody locally know Councillor Cynthia Adams,” responded the Doctor. “She’s Torquay’s lady mayoress, isn’t she?”

“Was,” corrected Paulson. “She handed over to James Raeburn, the solicitor, in April.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t like this at all.”

Stafford couldn’t help feeling involved. He couldn’t escape his roots. He was an upright local citizen who, as a young boy, had joined the police force straight from school. He knew he had been thought of as a reliable but uninspired young copper who had progressed in due course to the rank of sergeant. He married happily, had two children, and had become a small part of the Torquay establishment.

He was already fairly old for the job, when he had been transferred to plain clothes branch. He had served faithfully under DI Smith for nearly a decade. Smith was a large, shambling, untidy man but with a piercing intellect and Stafford owed his present position to what he had picked up from his illustrious predecessor. He had no illusions about himself. He realised his superiors regarded him as a man who had reached the top of his promotional ladder. He was only hanging on for the generous retirement package which he should receive in a few years´ time. Then he could concentrate on his garden in Stoke Gabriel and his small cabin cruiser in Galmpton Creek.

Alan Stevenson brought his close study of Cynthia Adams’ genitals to an end, and slowly straightened his angular body. He looked down from his commanding height of six foot three at the inspector. He spoke slowly as though choosing his words carefully. “It appears that our Cynthia had a few secrets which she had been keeping from her public.”

“What do you mean?” In fact Stafford had a very good idea of what the man meant, but he knew the doctor loved playing detective.

“Well,” said Stevenson with a slight smile, “the man who was with her in this room an hour ago may have murdered her, but he certainly didn’t rape her first.”

“How do you know that?”

The doctor waved to the chair in front of the window. “Her clothes weren’t torn from her body, were they? Look at her underclothes, laid across the arm of the chair. They’re not damaged. The shoes are placed neatly together. If you look in the wardrobe, I expect you’ll find her dress is hung up to prevent it creasing.”

Paulson decided to do just that. Carefully opening the door handle with his handkerchief to avoid damaging any fingerprints which might be there, he peered inside. Sure enough, the sole items hanging in the wardrobe were a colourful summer dress and a thin cotton cardigan.

“That wasn’t done by a rapist,” Stevenson pointed out. “But I have far more positive reasons for stating she wasn’t raped. I have taken samples of the vaginal discharges which you will notice have flowed out onto the sheets. It is clear to me that our Cynthia had just achieved a very satisfactory orgasm when her life was so suddenly terminated.” He smirked irreverently.

Stafford Paulson suddenly found the pathologist’s bantering tone profoundly shocking. He felt a most unsuitable desire to be sick beginning to overwhelm him. Perhaps it was the closed atmosphere in the room of warm, scented perspiration. His response was to turn and hurry across to open the window. He hung his head out for several minutes, gulping in fresh air and looking down into the car park in front of the hotel while he fought to regain his composure. ‘I shouldn’t be affected like this after all these years,’ he thought.

It was a beautiful evening in late June, with a light breeze ruffling the palms beside the promenade and gentle waves lapping on the beach. What a time for a murder. He could get no joy from this lovely setting while there was the still-beautiful body of a dead woman lying on the bed behind him. Above all, he was aware that there was going to be hell to pay when the details of this one got out.

Stevenson hadn’t finished yet. “I would say that our Cynthia was conducting a secret affair with someone - an affair which went a little further than she was expecting it to. I wonder whether it was a lovers’ tiff or an experiment in sexual gratification which went disastrously wrong.” He began to peel off his rubber gloves. “Anyway, this should be an easy one for you. There’s a load of evidence. I’ll be sending samples of this fluid off for DNA testing. There’ll almost certainly be prints in the bathroom and on the door handles. All you’ve got to do is find the right suspect and we’ll have enough proof to send him away for the rest of his life.”

“Is that all?” Paulson sniffed suspiciously. There was a nasty taste in his mouth.

The pathologist sighed. “You only have to test anyone in her circle to find out who might have been the lucky man. I expect, when you start asking questions, that there’ll be plenty of rumours about who it is. After all, an attractive, wealthy widow would be likely to have several serious admirers. It will be one of those.”

The inspector turned back to regard the other man with distaste. “You mean,” he asked, “that I’m going to have to go to her family and friends and ask them all to give DNA samples?”

“Not only family and friends.” Stevenson grinned at him. “I expect you’ll have to test her fellow councillors, senior staff and officials, any businessmen known to her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t have to go through the county set as well - you know - Lord Lieutenant, local MPs, even your boss - the chief constable.”

“Oh, my god.” Paulson blanched at the thought. Like Stevenson, he suspected that this case was going to cause a lot of ill-feeling among the great and the good in Torbay - feelings which were likely to be vented on any hapless official who got in their way.

“There’s one good thing, though,” chortled the pathologist.

“What’s that?”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t think you’ll need to embarrass any women. I’m virtually certain her murdering partner was a man. But the tests will confirm that.”

“Thanks for nothing.” The inspector turned back to look out of the window just as a police car and two vans swept through the hotel gates, blue lights flashing, sirens wailing. “Oh, great,” he groaned.

“What’s this?” Stevenson was beside him now. “Ah, the delicate little chaps from SOCO come tip-toeing in by the back door.”

The policeman shook his head. “Bang goes any chance I had of keeping the thing quiet for a few hours. Every newspaper reporter and photographer within twenty miles will be in the hotel lobby before I can get out of the building.”

“It’s lucky the fellows had to come from Exeter,” said the doctor. “Otherwise you and I wouldn’t have got within six feet of the body without a couple of SOCO fairies breathing down our necks.” He turned to favour Stafford Paulson with his most beaming smile. “Then I wouldn’t have been able to solve the thing for you nearly so quickly.”

The inspector punched him on the arm. He really quite liked the man and his irreverent attitude to authority. Of course, it was easy for the doctor to make comments like that at the expense of the police bosses. They didn’t pay his wages. But his wise-cracks did brighten an otherwise dismal prospect.

At that moment the door opened the door and the first of the eager young men of science staggered in with a load of equipment. Behind him there were another five, all similarly loaded. Paulson waved them towards the bed.

“The photographer has been and gone again,” he advised them. He should be back with the prints in about a quarter of an hour. So, if you want any other shots, you can tell him then.”

Just behind the SOCO men came the hotel manager. He was wringing his hands. “Inspector Paulson.” The man plucked at his sleeve. “I did ask you if we could keep the matter as quiet as possible. For something like this to happen is not good for the hotel. My owners will not be happy with me.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Montessori. I asked them to keep a low profile.” He shrugged apologetically. “But somehow the message didn’t get through.”

“But what am I to say to my other guests?”

“Hang on.” Paulson signed the authority form which was being poked under his nose by the SOCO sergeant. “You’ll need to sign this as well, Mr Montessori. It’s an authority for these officers to take apart anything which they need to, in the course of their investigations, and to take away anything which may be needed for evidence. Of course, they’ll give you a receipt for anything they remove or damage.”

Fortunately the unhappy man put his signature where the inspector indicated.

“Now,” Stafford Paulson asked, “do you have an office where we can go, and I can ask you a few questions?”

Chapter 1 – A year later.

It took Stafford Paulson nearly ten minutes to find a parking space. Divisional headquarters was so swamped with staff these days, that they’d soon have to extend the car park. He thought bitterly that he could use a couple of these extra staff in his little department in Torquay. As a result of the search, he was a few minutes late for his meeting with his boss. That wouldn’t make it any more enjoyable.

He was irritated by the sudden call to this late meeting. If possible, he liked to finish promptly on a Friday in the summer. That would give him time to have a leisurely meal with his wife Dorothy, before he ran her to bingo and carried on to his boat in Galmpton Creek to prepare it for the next day’s fishing, weather permitting.

He went upstairs and along the corridor in the executive wing. He paused outside the door labelled ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Lasham’ for a few seconds before he knocked.

The gravel voice with the Lancashire accent roared, “Come.”

Paulson obeyed.

“You’re late, Paulson – as usual.” Mark Lasham ground out another cigarette butt in the aluminium ashtray on the corner of his desk as he glared at his subordinate. He was an unhappy man.

Stafford had been made aware long ago, of the fact that Lasham had spent the last twenty-eight years ruthlessly climbing the ladder of success in the police force. The DCS bragged that he had received no helping hand from anyone. He had no relatives to make the path easy for him. He had no brilliant academic background to rely on. It had been tough all the way.

But Lasham was a tough man. There were many, both among his police colleagues and in the criminal underworld, who had cause to remember him and shudder - his squat, powerful physique; his square head mounted on a short neck, with the small steel-coloured eyes; the close-cropped, dark, bristling hair; his thick, square hands with the stubby fingers, the right index stained yellow by the lighted cigarette which was habitually jammed against it - these provoked a sensation of wariness, if not of fear. There were many in the West Midlands, and before that in Liverpool, who had cause to rue the day they had crossed the path of Mark Lasham.

In order to get the magic title of Chief Superintendent, he had been forced to accept a post in the West Country. It was an area which was known as the graveyard of ambition in the police force. But not for Lasham. He fitted as uncomfortably into the soft Devon landscape as a rhinoceros into a cottage garden. He had decided he would stick it out here for the statutory three years, while his colleagues edged warily round him. Then he would be looking for somewhere more suitable to exercise his talents - somewhere where there was some action.

Meanwhile he had to deal with characters like Inspector Stafford Paulson, who stood uncomfortably at attention across his desk.

“Have you seen this?” He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk.

Paulson picked it up. It was a photocopy of a cut-out newspaper article.

Lasham snorted. “It’s an article in last week’s Torbay Advertiser penned by some fucking clever-clogs reporter, who thinks he’s solved the Cynthia Adams murder.”

Stafford started to read it but Lasham snatched it back. “Don’t bother now. You can take it away and go through it at your leisure over the weekend. The silly bugger’s dreamed up some idea that our Cynthia was the fifth victim in a series – one every summer – a bloody serial holiday killer.” He snorted again.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard that idea.”

“It’s a load of crap, of course.” Then Lasham suddenly pointed at Paulson so violently that he recoiled a step. “But why has he done it?” Lasham demanded. “I’ll tell you why. It’s nearly a year, Paulson, since that stuck-up tart was murdered on your patch, and you’ve got nowhere with finding the culprit. Everybody’s getting fed up with waiting for an arrest.”

Paulson was struck silent by the injustice of the attack.

“Every time I bump into the Chief Constable,” Lasham continued, “the first question he asks me is, ‘Any luck with the Torbay hotel case?’.” He leaned across the desk and hissed at his junior. “I’m bloody fed up with it.”

Stafford Paulson remained standing and kept quiet. He tasted the stale acid atmosphere of the unventilated office with a feeling close to nausea. He used to enjoy his job. That was before Lasham arrived. The last two years had been nothing but pressure - filling in forms, doing returns, finding ways to massage the clear-up figures - no matter how. He now seemed to spend far too much of his time sitting behind his desk trying to make the results look better than they really were and explaining the frequent failures. Detective work had lost its stimulus for him. There were too many people breathing down his neck, too many self-interested bastards like Lasham around, waiting to jump on him and soon as they thought he wasn´t getting results.

“Why don’t you get stuck into it and sort something out before the next one dies?” demanded the Chief Superintendent.

Paulson sighed inwardly. He had forty-one months to go before he could apply for early retirement and get away from this place. Somehow he had to get through those last three and a half years and keep his nose clean. Then he could happily pass the rest of his days in his garden or messing around on the Dart in his boat.

“It isn’t as though you’re short of bloody evidence,” protested Lasham. “There were fingerprints everywhere, bodily fluids over half the bed. You’ve got a complete DNA profile of the murderer, and you still haven’t found the bugger. How many people have you tested up to now?”

“Just over fifteen hundred.”

“Well - test some more.”

“It’s not as easy as that.” Paulson dared to stand up for himself a little. “We’ve spread the net very wide already and it’s a long job getting them all to come in. There’s been a hell of a lot of resistance.”

His boss sighed. “Don’t I bloody know it. I’ve had complaints from just about every big-wig below the Prince of Wales. They’re all bloody outraged when we suggest that they might have been ferreting around in Cynthia’s knickers. I suppose they’re frightened of trying to explain it to their wives when they get home.” He resumed his pugnacious expression. “But it must be one of them. Obviously the woman had threatened to spill the beans about the affair and the bugger decided to shut her up. The only thing is, somehow you’ve been looking at the wrong people. I just don’t know how you do it.” He shook his head. “How many damn people are there in Torbay for God’s sake?”

“Within a fifteen-mile radius there are about a hundred and fifty thousand.” The inspector assumed a lugubrious expression. “But that’s in the winter. In summer the number probably peaks at nearly half a million.”

“You can forget the visitors,” said Lasham dismissively. “This isn’t a casual relationship.”

Paulson took a breath. “Well, sir. I don’t think the murderer’s a local man. If it is - it’s someone who’s managed to keep a pretty low profile so far.”

“It’s got to be someone she knew.” The chief superintendent waved a vague hand. “Are you sure you’ve checked all her contacts?”

“Everyone we can think of – her family and friends of course; then just about every man employed by the council – past and present. We’ve even tested her seventy-three year-old gardener and the husband of her daily help; in fact just about anybody who might have known her, right up to top business acquaintances and the higher echelons of the Tory party.”

“The Tory party?” Lasham blinked at him. “What’s the bloody Tory party got to do with it?”

Paulson allowed himself a half-smile. “She was president of the local constituency party and attended the last national party conference before she died. A hundred and eight of the men we tested were ones who she might have met there - including the deputy chairman.”

“Christ!” Lasham put his hand over his eyes. “No wonder we had a complaint from the House of Commons.”

“That’s the least of it,” the inspector sniffed. “Torbay upper class society is quite tight. My wife and I don’t get invited to social events anymore, so I can’t keep an eye open for anyone we might have missed.” Not that he minded. All he wanted, was to be left alone to enjoy his garden and his boat and his bit of fishing. It was his wife who complained.

“Hmm. That’s just something you’ll have to put up with. A copper can’t afford to be friends with all and sundry.” Mark Lasham paused for a second to let his annoyance build up again. “The question is - have you got the guts to carry this investigation through in the teeth of local opposition?”

Paulson stiffened. “I believe I’ve always done my duty, sir.”

“And I believe that isn’t enough.” The chief superintendent leaned forward. “It’s no good trying to run in the local popularity stakes. You’ve got to get your head down and force your way through, no matter how little the members of the public may like it.”

“Are you trying to say, sir, that you want to replace me?” For an absurd moment, the thought flitted across his mind that he could be free of all this stress and sense of failure.

“No, I am bloody not suggesting that,” barked Lasham. “We need your local knowledge and contacts. But we also need somebody with some new ideas - somebody who’s going to produce some results. The DCC thinks the same as me.”

Stafford Paulson looked at him carefully. “What are you saying, sir?”

The chief superintendent sighed. “I’m sorry Paulson, but you’re going to have someone stuck over the top of you.” His hand fluttered an excuse. “Lord Harry’s heard of a bright bird up at New Scotland Yard who’s dreamed up some sort of new computer system. He’s decided to borrow her for three months.” He raised a hand as if to ward off his assistant’s objections. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t want some clever, bloody woman coming in here and telling us how they do things up at the Met. But the DCC met her at some conference where she was giving a lecture. He grabbed her like a drowning man clutching at a life jacket. He booked her without so much as a word to me.”

“A woman?” said Paulson, almost to himself. “That’s all we need. What age is she?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in her late twenties, I think. Still wet behind the ears and she’s already a bloody DCI.” He shook his head at the injustice of it. “It seems to come easy to these university graduates.”

The inspector grimaced. “The staff won’t like it, sir. It’ll be like a slap in the face to them after all the extra time they’ve put in on this one.”

“Fuck the bloody staff,” Lasham burst out. “When will you get it into your head, Paulson, that all the patient plodding in the world is no bloody good if you don’t get results. This Chief Inspector Faraday,” (he accentuated the words) “gets results, and you and your bloody staff don’t. That’s all there is to it. Of course,” he added with a little smirk, “she might find it’s different when she’s working with a bunch of country yokels.”

Stafford Paulson was quiet for a moment as he digested the latest bombshell. This really was the last straw. There were going to be a lot of problems between his team and this aggressive woman from London. And how would the local people react as they started stirring up all the old mud again that they had raised during the last year. It was all right for her, but he had to live with these people afterwards.

He shook his head. One thing was certain. If she was successful, he wouldn’t get any of the credit and, if she failed, everybody would want his guts for garters because she would allege that he hadn’t given her the sort of support that she’d received in the Met. However, he realised it was a waste of time trying to argue when the decision had already been taken.

He sighed. “Well,” he said mildly, “when do we get to meet this lady?”

“Monday morning.” Lasham smiled. “The DCC was going to call you straight in to his office then to meet her, but I suggested that I got you up here this afternoon to break it to you a bit gently first.”

Paulson couldn’t help a wry grin at the thought that his boss considered the last fifteen minutes had been gentle.

The chief superintendent catapulted himself out of his chair in his usual aggressive manner. “Right. Here’s the article. You’d better get all your paperwork up together. No doubt this bloody woman will be looking for ways of telling us you’ve dropped plenty of clangers. Well – that’s all. You’d better get back to your comfy patch.”

As Paulson made his way back to the car, he contemplated his ruined weekend as he prepared for this new woman to descend on them next week.

Chapter 2

Susannah Blake put the phone back in its cradle and went back on to the terrace to join her friend. She paused a moment at the patio doors to watch the setting sun as it plunged into the earth to the north west, putting a couple of the Tors on Dartmoor into black, cut-out relief against the orange sky. Below her the marine drive was already sunk in shadow, the little waves washing gently against the sea wall. She was unaware of her natural pose, which accentuated her still-slim figure with the carefully coiffured fair hair falling towards her left shoulder.

“Who was that, dear?” enquired Moira.

“It was Stephen.”

“What? Not coming down for the weekend again?”

Susannah twisted her face into a smile. “Apparently he has to go to some important conference in Switzerland.”

“Oh, dear. That must be the third weekend in a row that he’s been too busy to get down here. We’ll soon be forgetting what he looks like. You don’t think he’s taken up with some sexy little secretary, do you?” One could almost hear the woman’s claws being sharpened. “Thank goodness Andrew’s taken early retirement. I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him as seldom as you see Stephen.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad.” Susannah shrugged. “I have everything I need here.”

“I’m sure you do, dear. But it’s not the same if you can’t share it with your husband. You must join us tomorrow night for dinner.”

“That’s not necessary, Moira. I shall be perfectly happy on my own.” In fact she didn’t fancy a whole evening of Andrew’s clumsy flirtation while Moira looked daggers at her, as though it was all Susannah’s fault.

Her friend changed tack. “What do you think of this disclosure about the murders?”

“What murders?”

“My dear, don’t you read the local rag?”

“Do you mean the Advertiser? I’ve got it here somewhere, but I haven’t looked at it yet. Is there something in it about some murders?”

“Susannah – it’s sensational! It’s not just some murders. This is getting very close to home.”

“Really? How exciting. Tell me more.”

“It’s more terrifying than exciting. Do you remember the murder of poor Cynthia Adams about a year ago?”

“Of course I do. But there was nothing frightening about that. Wasn’t it suggested that it was probably some sex experiment that had gone wrong? Apparently some guy had just bonked her brains out and had obviously gone a bit too far.” Susannah smiled bitterly. “What a nice way to go.”

“Really, Susie!” Moira looked shocked. “You can be quite crude at times. Must you use the type of language you picked up in your time in the theatre?”

“Don´t be a prude, Moira. You know that everybody was saying the same thing.”

“Yes, well, that theory seems to have been knocked on the head. Apparently she was the fifth victim of a serial killer who comes to Torquay every June and bumps off some rich woman living on her own. They reckon the next one is due in a couple of weeks.”

“What!”

(continues)

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