ONE

Detective Sergeant Richard Coleman edged his car out into the stream of slow moving traffic and onto Clive Sullivan Way, heading across the city centre of Hull and in the direction of Hedon Road, towards the city’s docks. He’d been woken by his mobile ringing, but he’d not made it across the room before voicemail kicked in. The message informed him he was to meet at King George Dock to attend a suspicious death; a body discovered in a freight container. Approaching the Smith and Nephew flyover, the early morning commuter rush had reduced traffic to a total standstill. With a van directly in front of him, he couldn’t see too far ahead, but it was likely a crash was hindering the traffic’s progress. Passing the Princes Quay shopping centre and the marina, the traffic slowly thinned out and he was soon looking at queuing traffic on the opposite dual-carriage way. Indicating right, he pulled onto the dock and followed the trail of police vehicles until he reached his destination. The body was in a cargo container, differentiated by the police tape flapping in the wind. Several officers were already in attendance, efficiently going about their work, under the supervision of the Scene of Crime Manager. Nowadays, the dock was just as much about leisure as it was work, and the Rotterdam ferry would shortly be docking, depositing several hundred tourists at the gateway of the city. Nobody wanted their first sighting to be a potential murder scene; welcome to Hull, he thought.

Detective Constable Maynard approached his car and waited for him to switch off and lock up. ‘Morning.’

You’re a little too perky after last night, thought Coleman. Standing so close to the North Sea and feeling its biting wind, he thrust his hands into his pockets and attempted to sink further into his overcoat. ‘Whatever.’ He laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m not too bad, considering.’

They laughed and set off towards where Detective Inspector Roy McCormack was stood, issuing jobs to anyone stupid enough to stand still for more than a few minutes without looking busy.

‘Good morning’ said the DI.

‘Morning’ replied Coleman.

‘You look a little rough, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Cheers.’ He’d not even had a drink the previous night.

‘It was always going to happen, I suppose’ the DI continued.

‘What’s that?’

‘My first major incident with the team. I knew the peace wouldn’t last.’

Coleman nodded his agreement.  The DI had transferred to Hull three weeks ago from the south coast; plenty of time to wait for a major incident in a city where violent crime was on the increase.

McCormack shook his head. ‘You look knackered. If you decide to go for promotion, you’ll have to knock the late nights on the head. Not least because you’ll spend your evenings catching up with all the bloody paperwork it generates.’

Coleman grunted. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have at the moment. As far as he was concerned, the rank of Sergeant was what he wanted. The role of Sergeant gave him autonomy. As long as he delivered results, he knew he’d be pretty much left to get on with job. It was too early to know what his relationship with DI McCormack would be like, but he wanted the role to stay the same, one that enabled him to be out of the office, actually investigating. It made a difference; it made him a worker rather than a suit. ‘What have we got?’ he asked.

‘In a nutshell, what we’ve got is a body in that container.’

Coleman looked over to where McCormack was pointing.

‘Who’s doing what?’

‘Terry Hurley is the senior SOCO, Jane Waterhouse is Crime Scene Manager.’

‘Fair enough.’ They moved towards the cargo container without Maynard, who had been instructed to take a statement from the lorry driver who discovered the body. The lorry driver was sat in his cab with a hot cup of tea. Coleman glanced around and watched the lorries and coaches all slow down as they departed the ferry terminal, attempting to see what all the fuss was about. Part disgusted, part amused, he stood and stared back at them. Was it human nature? Would he do the same in their position? Whatever the answer, he needed a cigarette, not least because they were approaching the body.

Offering their identification cards to the uniformed officer stationed at the front of the container, Coleman and McCormack were pointed through to the entrance of the cargo container. He knew behind the closed door would be a scene awash with activity. The Scene of Crime team would be busy photographing and videoing the body and its position, taking in all the details and the evidence which would be required for when a case would be presented to the courts.

Coleman glanced over to the DI and sighed. ‘There’ll have been countless people in that container over the last few weeks. Not much chance of getting anything of use.’
McCormack grunted his agreement. All the same, the container would be systematically and rigorously combed over by the forensic experts in search of any crucial clues. Anything from a fingerprint to a DNA sample could yield a match that would lead them to the killer. The difficulty would be in separating the genuine from the alien. All they could do was wait. Due to the danger of contaminating the crime scene, only the SOCO team, dressed from head to foot in protective clothing, would be permitted access to the container. Coleman would have preferred to see the victim within the correct context, but one false move, or even the suggestion of one, would often be all a clever defence barrister would need to make the suggestion that the police were less than thorough in their forensic review. Experience had taught him seeing the victim, seeing the suffering, motivated him far more than reviewing the scene on a video playback or through a series of photographs. It gave him a focus for those long nights when it would be easier to simply give up on the investigation and mark is as ‘unsolved.’ On the plus side, he didn’t miss the sight and smells of a dead body. Nobody offered a training course which actually helped make any sense of those.

Coleman’s watched as Terry Hurley slipped out of the container. Coleman nodded a silent greeting and the men moved towards each other.

‘I assume death has been confirmed?’ asked McCormack.

Hurley nodded. ‘The paramedics have been and gone. Once we’re finished photographing and what have you, we’ll get the body off to the mortuary for the post-mortem.’

They all took a step back and watched as one of Hurley’s team stepped out of the container, camcorder in hand. Hurley took control of the equipment and showed Coleman and McCormack the footage. ‘The victim was male, average height and build, and I’d guess somewhere around 30 years of age.’

Coleman squinted at the small screen. The man was lying on his side in a dirty pair of trainers, jeans and a tracksuit top, with his arms tied behind his back. Coleman was no pathologist, but the wound on the side of the head, surrounded by congealed blood, was the cause of death. He turned away from the image. ‘Anything you can tell us?’
Hurley shook his head. ‘Nothing more than the obvious.’ He pointed to the wound.

‘ID?’ asked Coleman.

Hurley shook his head again

‘Mobile?’

‘Afraid not, but we’ll get a DNA profile from him, though. That’s not a problem. We can try and get it fast-tracked, see what that throws up?’

Coleman knew if they wanted the results quickly, it would cost around £1,000. It wasn’t his decision to make, but identification was going to be the first priority. He also knew there was no guarantee of success. The man had to be on national DNA database. If there had been a mobile telephone on the body they could have contacted the centralised unit which liaises directly with the telephone companies. This would have given them a possible identification and address for the victim without incurring any expense, or even a huge amount of effort. Coleman cursed their luck. Even more importantly, the phone could help pinpoint the movements of its owner. By plotting the phone’s signal, an accurate geographical location could be pin-pointed at a given time.

‘Are you going tonight?’ asked Hurley.

The football, thought Coleman. A home match for Hull City. He looked at the unfolding crime scene. ‘We’ll see.’

Maynard had wondered back over to the group and pointed at the container. ‘The guy who discovered this said the lock had been forced. He was collecting a near-by container and he noticed the door was ajar.’

‘So he had a look?’ asked Coleman.

‘Wishes he hadn’t, now.’

Hurley interrupted them. ‘You’ll have no doubt noticed the general lack of blood in the container. We’re looking at a secondary crime scene.’ Hurley meant the body hadn’t been killed in the container. The unidentified man had been murdered elsewhere, and that only added further complications.

‘Now then you two, this is where you’ve been hiding.’ She pointed at the clock mounted on the wall. ‘Time to be back at work.’

Valerie Smith was the shift manager of the busy care home.  As the end of break-time approached, it was her job to make sure the employees were ready to return to work. ‘Andrzej’ she continued, ‘I need you to go over to the far block to make a start on cleaning the bathrooms.’

Andrzej groaned. The bathrooms were the one thing he didn’t want to clean. The residents’ bedrooms were often dirty and smelly, and serving food was hard work, but the bathrooms were the worst.

‘And don’t forget to give them a proper going over, please.’

Before he had chance to protest, Valerie Smith had turned towards his friend. ‘Pawel, I need you to help Sheila with the washing-up in the main kitchen, please.’ She moved back towards the door. ‘Right, come on…we haven’t got all day to be sitting around. Let’s look lively.’

Andrzej waited for her to leave before pushing his newspaper over to Pawel. Pawel had been listening to his friend update him on the weekend’s Premiership football scores before Smith had called an end to break-time. They both loved football and were saving up to see a match, most likely Manchester United if they could get tickets. Andrzej turned away and looked out of the window. He didn’t want to be here, in a residential care home in Hull. It was often cold and wet and the work was hard. He watched young children skipping down the street, their mothers shouting warnings to them about the traffic. Smiling to himself; he thought one day that would be him walking along the street with his children, simply enjoying themselves, not having to work. Tomorrow was his 25th birthday, but thousands of miles from home, he had never felt so alone. He collected the remains of his lunch together and headed for the bin before turning to his friend. ‘Another five hours to go then we can go home, maybe watch a movie?’

Pawel nodded, tidying away his book and the newspaper into his rucksack, readying to go back to work.

The door opened and Valerie Smith peered in. It was their final warning. They stood up, prepared to head back to their work.

‘Maybe one day we get better jobs in England’ said Pawel.

‘One day...when we have English qualifications. I hope so. No more cleaning.’
Andrzej looked at the clock and started wishing the next five hours away. The only comfort being he was earning more money cleaning toilets in England than he would working in a professional capacity back home.

‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ DI McCormack stood at the front of the room and waited for conversations to wind down. ‘Thank you. Obviously, we’re all here in relation to this morning’s suspicious death on King George Dock.’ He pointed to the blown up photograph of the victim on a whiteboard entitled Operation Highlands, a random title thrown up by a centralised computer programme. As yet, there was nothing underneath the image. Their job was to fill the space with answers. He turned to his left and nodded at the man stood alongside him. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Beresford will be the Senior Investigating Officer, with myself acting as Deputy SIO.’ 
Coleman looked around the room at his fellow detectives and civilian support staff. The lucky ones had a chair, the rest perched on the corner of desks. They were sat in the Major Incident Room, located in the city centre’s Queens Gardens Police Station. The room was state of the art, with computer access to centralised investigative systems such as HOLMES, from which the actions which would drive the inquiry would be generated, allocated to officers and analysed.

McCormack turned back to the whiteboard. ‘What do we have so far? How about the cargo container?’

‘The container arrived from Rotterdam three days ago’ somebody at the back of the room said. ‘We know it belongs to a Dutch company who use port the regularly. The pay on account for bringing freight in and our intelligence suggests that’s usually a good indication it’s a genuine business. The company, Holkenbern B.V., hasn’t previously come to the attention of the authorities.’

At this point there were few details for the officers to get their teeth into. Once HOLMES started generating queries, the room would be a whirlwind of activity. McCormack turned back and faced the room. ‘Obviously we don’t have a whole lot to go on so far. Identification is our first priority. The post-mortem is penciled in for  tomorrow. Unfortunately for him, DS Coleman will be attending.’

All eyes turned to Coleman, who punched the air in mock delight.

‘Spring Street site, OK, Richard?’

Coleman made a note. ‘Fine.’ Post-mortems were held either on the Spring Street site, found on the edge of the city centre, or at Hull Royal Infirmary. A state of the art facility was being developed, which would see the city’s mortuary become a blueprint for the rest of the country, and include a purpose built forensic suite which would be the focus for all major cases across the region. For now, they had to make do with what they had.
‘As I said, the victim has died a violent death and our first priority is to get a positive identity. DC Hargreaves, any missing persons who might be possibilities?’

‘Not when I checked earlier this morning, sir’ she said.

‘OK. So not withstanding that, we need to get out there and knock on some doors. There are already some actions to follow up on, most important of which is interviewing the dock’s security staff who were on duty on last night. I want to know if they saw or heard anything. What did the guy who raised the alarm have to say?’

‘Stephen Leak’ said Maynard, who was sat at the back of the room. ‘I spoke to him at the scene and he’s coming in to make a formal statement. He was collecting a near-by container unit to take to Folkestone and noticed the seal on ours had been broken. He had a look to see if there was a problem, and then when there obviously was, rang us from his mobile. I’ve had him checked him on the computer and he’s clean. The guy was in total shock when we spoke to him. I can’t see him developing as a potential suspect.’

‘Right. OK. DS Peacock will be initially handling a team to identify the body. DS Coleman will be working on taking statements from the security guards at the docks.’
This was usual procedure. The DI would appoint two DS’s to control the day-to-day running of the inquiry, each being allocated their own specialist assignments. As well as performing their own work, the DS’s would co-ordinate civilian workers and ensure the DC’s were working in accordance with the SIO’s policy. Every step taken in the inquiry had to be logged, along with the rationale for it, so that a coherent narrative could be presented in court. Coleman understood there was little point in having two DS’s working on identifying the body at this stage, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed by the decision. After being called to the crime scene by the DI, he was itching to be at the sharp-end of the investigation. He turned his head as the DI waved Kate Johnson, one of the force’s Press Liaison Officers, into the room. She removed her coat and made her way towards where McCormack and Beresford stood. Coleman knew what was coming and stifled a yawn. He estimated she was in her late twenties, and he knew she was a ruthless operator, focused on advancing her career.

‘Thank you, Detective Inspector.’ She looked around the room. ‘OK, I think it goes without saying this is going to be a very sensitive case in terms of media coverage. Clearly, we don’t want to be opening ourselves up to any accusations of not conducting a thorough investigation. The press will be watching and evaluating our performance very closely. The local radio and television are close to the scene recording segments for lunchtime broadcast and the national press may wish to pick up the story in due course; it’s too early to say for definite. In the meantime, it’s imperative we communicate with the press through the correct channels and procedures.’ She smiled at McCormack.

‘Thank you, Kate. We’ll work up an official statement between us shortly.’

Heaven forbid that an actual murder should get in the way of good PR, thought Coleman.

The victim found at the docks was a black man, approximately aged in his mid-thirties. Coleman understood the urgency, but he assumed his fellow officers shared a dislike of the implication they needed a special reminder to be thorough. No detective wanted to be part of an unsolved murder investigation.

‘Do you think we should be looking at the possibility this man was an illegal immigrant?’ asked Hargreaves. ‘Maybe he got into the container without the freight company knowing about it?’

‘That’s a fair point and nothing should be ruled out at this stage’ said McCormack.

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