2

Charli ties a knot in the bag, dropping it next to the cooker.
Tina doesn’t look too well. The madras is fighting back.
“You want more tea?”
“Yeah, please. I’m not having that again.”
“If you fart you can go outside with it.”
Tina burps rather loudly, “It’s not the farting I’m worried about.”
“So where were we?”
Charli switches the kettle on again. Taking the mugs off the table.
“Our man, yeah. Has anything I’ve said really made any sense?”
“Is that a trick question?”
Charli picks up the remains of the weird nan and bites a chunk off. Tina sits at the table, gently rubbing her stomach.
Almost a case here for Charli to say, ‘I told you so’.
“No, but you know what I mean. have you ever come across anything like this before?”
“No but there’s a first time for everything.”
“Do you know, you couldn’t sound any more condescending if you tried.”
“That’s a big word. You been at the dictionary again?”
“Charli, I’m trying to piece this together. You’re not helping.”
Charli shrugs and repeats the cycle of tea bags.
Tina runs her hand through her hair. Thinking and as she thinks she’s getting somewhere, she burps again and it disappears, “Bollocks!”
“No, but the tea’s made.”

“Do you think we could have a conversation where we don’t swear?”
Charli rinses out the mugs, “We have, haven’t we?”
“I know I can do it, but I’m not so sure about you.”
“Hang on, you swear worse than me!”
Tina gets up from the table. A smaller burp, “Do I?”
“Yeah, you do it a lot.”
“Yeah, well perhaps we shouldn’t.”
“You speak for yourself. Me, I’ll talk as I like, thanks.”
“Not tomorrow night, please. Mum and Dad don’t like it.”
Charli drops the hand towel next to the sink, “Okay, I’ll do my best. I won’t wear jeans or those shoes either.”
“Thank you.”
“What is it with your Mum and Dad anyway?”
“They asked to meet you. They want to know who my partner is, so that’s why we’re doing this.”
“I think they’ll be in for a horrible shock.”
Tina smiles at her, “You’re not that bad.”
“No, that’s why we went speed dating and ended up with each other. That was handy, wasn’t it?”
“That was a laugh. I really enjoyed that.”
Charli sighs, “Yeah, it was.”
“Right, I’m gonna head. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay then. If you do anymore thinking, save it for work, I don’t want calls at three in the morning telling me you just thought of something.”
“No, I won’t.”
Charli scratches at her nose, “Hey, let’s go over the paperwork before we go back there. See if we can find anything.”
“There’s not much chance of that.”
“Then what have we got to lose?”
“Yeah, good point.”
Tina opens the door, pulling her coat about her, Charli shivers in the chill from the hallway, “Until the morning then.”
“Yeah, oh and thanks for the takeaway.”
“No problem. I’ll see you.”

Charli carefully makes her way around the garden, looking at the clip board, the pages are numbered, a narrow column on the left, indicating where various body parts were found. There is a trail that ends a high brick wall. Charli looks around, seeing if she can find anything she can stand on and get a look over the wall.
Biting down on the pen, she finds a folding chair shoved between shed and the outer wall that runs parallel to the street.
She looks at the top of the wall and no signs of anything. Bird shit, a little moss but that’s it.
She opens the chair, a bit rusty but she rests it against the high wall at the back. Charli gets up and peers over the wall. A nasty looking bramble, and some sort of vine like thing and not much else. Looking directly down the wall, there are a couple of old tyres and what looks like an old armchair.
She gets down, takes the pen from her mouth, scrawls a few notes and looks up as Keith is walking towards her.
“Anything new?”
“Not so far. Still checking.”
“Tina?”
“Next door, Mrs. Tully.” Charli points at the high wall, “We’d better get a crew to check in there.”
“Why?”
“I think the trail leads that way.”
Keith looks down at where he’s standing, “Wasn’t it checked yesterday?”
“I don’t know, I don’t have a report on it.”
“All right, I’ll call a team in.”
Charli sighs, “Well, I don’t think there’s anything more we can do here. Unless Tina has any luck with Mrs. Tully and there’s something found in there.”
“Make sure you write it up and get it in the file.”
“Yeah, I will.”
Keith turns and walks away to his car.
Charli reads the sheets again and walks out to the street. Tina appears a few minutes later, shaking her head, “No, Mrs Tully doesn’t remember anything else. Only seeing Mr. Gordon in the garden.”
“Keith was here, you just missed him.”
“You get something?”
“Yeah, maybe. Let me show you.”
Charli repeats the process, pointing at several places using the pen for emphasis, then Tina gets up on the chair for a look.
Same conclusion as Charli.
“Was there anything found in the street?”
Charli flips a couple of pages, “Er, Chaplin was swept, but that was clean, so was Villiers and Belton.”
“So, whatever it was, it swoops down, does that to him, and fucks off that way?” Tina points out beyond the wall, but there are only more houses.
“Oh come on! A fucking house to house?”
“Yeah, if we have to. There has to be something.”
“You and that something again!”
“Nobody saw anything, no one apparently heard anything so what do we have Detective Charlotte Hamlyn?”
“I can sum that up in two words.”
“Yeah, go on then.”
“Fuck all.”
“Sometimes, I really hate you.”
“Ah, you’re just saying that. You know I like you. So are we done then?”
“Yeah, I’m buying lunch.”


Tina sits back and stretches. She leans forward and closes the file. A little scratch of her head, her fingers then tap on the file.
“I might have something.” Charli sits back from her terminal.
“Yeah, what?”
“There’s a report from Stratford police. Two years ago, they found body parts scattered on the tops of the high buildings. The investigating officers were Cathy Summers and a Philip Jackson. Neither are on active duty now, Cathy lives in France, but Philip is a teacher at the weapons school near Aldershot.”
“So what else do we have.”
“Not a lot and I’m getting pissed off with saying that, but these things just stopped. The initial investigation ran for two weeks and was then shut down.”
“That’s a bit quick?”
“All the data I have. Maybe I should give my old mate Terry Caldwell a ring, he’s liaison, perhaps, he can get us a look at the full file.”
“Has he got any pull at City police?“
“No harm in asking. We don’t have anything to lose, do we?”
“Then, my dear, perhaps you should call him.”
Charli nods, “What’s a little more than something?”
“Something more?”
“No, that doesn’t sound right.”
“I’ll ring this Philip Jackson, you call Terry thingy, let’s see what we come up with.”
Charli picks up her phone and dials a number, “Yeah, Terry Caldwell please.”
“Charli Hamlyn.”
She then hears a light buzzing sound in her ear, then a light sounding voice, “Hello you. I thought you’d have retired by now?”
“Terry, I’m not old enough. Keeping well?”
“Yeah, not bad. So, how are you doing these days?”
“Well, I ain’t dead yet, but I need a favour.”
“Uh uh, and what would you be looking for?”
“A Stratford police file. Two years ago. The body parts file.”
“Do you have the file number for me?”
Charli looks closer at her screen, “Yeah, six one four, two three seven R.”
“R? That is an R at the end?”
“Yeah, suffix is R. Why?”
The line goes momentarily quiet, “Leave it with me, I’ll check and get back to you on it.”
“Today?”
Terry laughs, “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay, thanks. “
Tina looks over at her, “Didn’t it go well?”
“Yeah, but just doesn’t feel right. As soon as I gave him the file number, he went very quiet. So, what did you get off Philip Jackson?.”
“He wasn’t available. I left a message, so we’ll have to hope he calls us back.”
Charli then stands up, “I’m missing something.”
“What?”
“Where’s Keith?”
“Office, I think.”
Charli picks up her phone, “Just a minute.” She then presses a couple of numbers, a loud beeping noise, followed by a very sharp, “Now what?”
“Just refresh my memory, a police file ending in an R suffix, is there anything peculiar about that?”
“You got a short term memory. It means it’s restricted. Divisional only. Some security protocol that was brought in about two years ago.”
“Okay, thanks Dave, I just wanted to check, that’s all.”
“Oh, right then. See ya!”
Charli drops her phone back, “You did say this was weird, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Good choice of word.”

Tina just makes it back to her desk with a fresh coffee, when Keith appears.
“Would you two ladies like to take a walk to my office?”
He then turns and walks away.
Tina looks at Charli, “What did you do, spit in his tea?”
“I wouldn’t say it was spit.”
Tina puts her cup down, “I bet we’re in the shit now.”
“I thought we weren’t going to swear?”
“Is shit swearing?”
“I don’t know, but fuck is.”
“What about bollocks?”
“Isn’t that a bit mild?”
“How can you mildly swear?”
Charli stops at the door, “You should know, you’re dictionary girl!”
“Tina! Charli!” Keith really is shouting now.
“Okay, let’s have one swear word each. That’s fair isn’t it?”
“Charli, I think we’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“Oh, how do you figure that one out, Sherlock?”
Keith slams his door after them, “Take a fucking seat.”
Tina looks at Charli, “Can you get them from Ikea?”
“What?”
“Fucking seats?”
“You swore!”
Tina looks so innocent, “Yeah, but he started it.”
“Okay, which one of you screw ups did that?”
Now they look at each other.
“What?”
“What do you mean what?”
“Which one of you called Terry Caldwell?”
Charli coughs, “Er, that would be me.”
“I’ve just had a five minute conversation with City Divisional.”
“Oh, didn’t they have much to say? Five minutes, that’s not bad.”
“Yeah, and it was all one way. I got screwed by them because of what you did!”
“Shit, I only asked to have a look at a file.”
“Yeah, but you knew it was restricted.”
“Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Yeah, well. I want your report on my desk by nine o’clock sharp. Is that reasonable, do you think?”
“Tonight?”
“Tina, please don’t make yourself out to be as bad as her. She’s not that far from the suspension tree. Don’t be a fuck up like her.”
“Oh, in the morning then?”
Keith looks severely at Charli and says nothing.
Tina nudges Charli and stands up, “Sorry. We’ll get right on it.”
“There’s a website.”
“What?”
“Fucking chairs. Do you want it?”
Tina bursts out laughing heading for the door, “You just don’t listen do you?”
“They even have this harness thing that-”
“Charli!”
“It looked interesting, not that I would, but you know, it was…”
Tina grabs her, a silly grin at Keith and shutting his door, “Please, just one thing.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Just shut the fuck up!”
“You’re getting worse!”
“Charli…”

“Is there something wrong with this picture?”
“What do you mean?”
Charli washes her hands, “We’re investigating a murder. A little weird, as you say, okay, I then make a simple phone call and alarm bells go off. Why?”
“Go on, surprise me.”
“They’re hiding something. In that file, there’s something they don’t want us to see.”
Tina pulls at her jacket, “I think that’s a bit extreme. It‘s a restricted file.”
“Yeah, but we’re on the same side, aren’t we?”
“Maybe, they don’t think so.”
“Okay, but who is this ’they‘?”
“Look, we’ve done what we can. We still have a chance with this Philip Jackson. Hopefully, he’ll tell us something.”
Charli dries her hands and waits by the door, “I’m sorry about earlier, I shouldn’t go off like that, but Keith just winds me up.”
“How close to suspension are you?”
“This is it. I screw this up and I’m in a world of shit.”
“I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you say?”
Charli shrugs, “Doesn’t matter. There’s been a lot of stuff going on.”
“Yeah, I know that, but you’re my partner.”
“Eighteen months. Been fun, hasn’t it?”
“Hey, Charli. It’s not over yet.”
“Are we going out to dinner or what?”
“I’ll pick you up about seven, okay?”
“Yeah, and I promise, I won’t swear.”
Tina stands very close to her at the door, “Just by you going with me is enough.”
“Yeah, I hope I don’t mess it up for you.”
“You won’t. About seven?”
“I‘ll be ready.”
Charli opens the door and walks ahead of her, “I’m looking forward to a nice hot shower and a relaxing cup of tea.”
“I could almost join you.”
“Well, you know where I live.”