Page 25 of First Blood
The boss had told her to leave the CCTV for now and concentrate on the background of their victim.
She’d heard the pause at the end of their conversation. A pause that should have been filled with Stacey’s update on the murder of the homeless man in Wolverhampton, except that she had nothing to offer. She’d left a message for Robyn, the one female police officer who had still been semi-friendly towards her after she’d passed the National Investigators Exam and Advanced Detective Training course.
Gradually, during her two years as a trainee detective constable, people she’d classed as friends had spoken to her less and less, but Robyn had still occasionally struck up a conversation in the canteen. Now and again their eyes had met and Stacey had fleetingly wondered if there was an attraction between them. The very thought had frightened her to death. She’d never once acted on her attractions to other women.
She took out her phone and dialled the woman’s number again. She was mildly surprised when the call was answered on the second ring.
‘Hey Robyn, I left yer a…’
‘Yeah, I know. I just got it.’
Stacey raised an eyebrow trying to analyse the tone in so few words. Forced politeness. She couldn’t help the emotion that gathered in her throat. At the very least she’d hoped they were still friends, but it appeared that Robyn now also viewed her promotion as some kind of betrayal against all female uniformed officers.
Stacey swallowed before speaking and put effort into keeping her voice light.
‘I wondered if you’d heard anything about the murder of that homeless guy in the—’
‘Tommy Deeley?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ Stacey said, although she hadn’t previously had a name. ‘Anything weird with his injuries?’
‘Single stab wound to the chest is what killed him,’ she said quickly, and Stacey knew there was something else.
‘Any genital mutilation?’
Stacey heard the sharp intake of breath and knew she had it right.
She pushed forward knowing the two of them were not going to speak again. In for a penny in for a pound.
‘Anything else withheld?’ Stacey asked.
Silence.
‘Look, we’re still on the same side, finding the bad guys and I promise not to bother yer again if you just tell me, okay?’
‘A small bell, like from a bird’s toy, was found in his pocket. No idea what that’s all about but…’
Her words trailed away and Stacey could tell she was eager to be off the phone. There was nothing more for either of them to say.
Maybe there had been something there once but it was now gone.
‘Thanks, Robyn. Tek care,’ Stacey said putting the woman out of her misery.
She made a few notes from the brief conversation. At least now she had something to tell the boss later.
She returned to the job she’d been tasked earlier. Finding out more about Luke Fenton.
She’d already found that he had no prior convictions and was not known to the police. Any Google searches of his name brought up nothing but a couple of social media accounts.
She logged into Facebook and found his profile.
The man had a total of twenty-three friends and had last posted three days earlier. His information told her that he worked as a storeman at a furniture warehouse on Brindley trading estate.
She scrolled down his timeline looking for anything of interest but his posts were mainly shares of other people’s posts or Unilad videos. Each post had one or two likes but no interaction. His friends appeared to be a mixture of other workers from the warehouse and a few people of similar age that she guessed to be old school friends. She continued scrolling through his timeline, thinking how strange the profile was. He’d liked no pages, had no games, had joined no groups and so far, had posted nothing to give her any indication of the man he was.
Finally, a month earlier, she found a post from the man himself.
Stacey frowned at the one-word post, placed on the Facebook wall of a woman by the name of Lisa Bywater.
