The Body in the Boot: The first 'Mac' Maguire mystery

  Patrick C. Walsh

  The Body in the Boot

  The first ‘Mac’ Maguire mystery

  Garden City Ink

  A Garden City Ink ebook

  www.gardencityink.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2015

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2015 Patrick C. Walsh

  The right of Patrick C. Walsh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-9932800-0-9

  Cover art © Patrick S. Walsh 2015

  CC source image courtesy of Lars Plougmann

  https://www.flickr.com/photos/criminalintent/4389864598/

  “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.”

  ― George Bernard Shaw, The Devil's Disciple

  For Kathleen and Patrick

  Monday 5th January

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Three months later

  Monday 5th January

  He just hadn’t seen it coming. The salesman’s head was buzzing, trying to come to terms with the catastrophic loss of what he’d long considered a certain order. That order would have provided his firm with work for months to come and he’d been so sure that it was in the bag. The thought of the massive mortgage he’d just taken out on the back of it made his stomach churn. He knew he needed to get his excuses lined up for tomorrow’s inevitable inquest or he’d be for the chop.

  Things just couldn’t get any worse, he said to himself.

  Although it was still early afternoon the sky had darkened and it was spotting with rain as he approached the traffic island. It’s never a good idea to have your mind filled with other things when trying to cope with the complicated task of driving and, because of this, things did indeed get worse. Afterwards the salesman had no answer when he was asked why he hadn’t noticed the car. The light hadn’t been that bad and, even if it had, the other car’s sidelights had been on. He could only conclude that, somehow, he just hadn’t looked to his right at all as he came into the island. Whatever the reason he found himself coming to an unscheduled and very abrupt stop.

  His head whipped forward and he felt as though he’d instantly pulled every muscle in his neck and shoulders. The teeth clenching noise of metal on metal echoed around and around his head. For a second he thought something had happened to his vision but it was just his windscreen that had crazed over, shattered by the impact. He climbed out of his car and shakily stood up. He saw that he’d hit the other car right on the passenger door.

  His first hope was that this was some bad dream and he’d soon wake up, his second that the people in the other car hadn’t been injured or worse by his own massive stupidity. With overwhelming relief he noticed that there was no-one in the passenger seat. The engine of the other car gunned as it tried to move off but the metalwork behind the front wheel had crumpled and somehow welded itself to the salesman’s car. Then, in a sort of delayed reaction, the boot lid of the other car slowly popped open. A few seconds later the salesman was amazed to see the driver abandon his vehicle and run off at considerable speed towards the town centre.

  He shouted at the fleeing figure, ‘Mate, you don’t need to run. It was all my fault.’

  The man didn’t even look back and soon disappeared around a corner. The salesman was confused and not quite sure what to do next. Although a jam was building up he didn’t hear the blaring of their horns as cars weaved around the collision. For some reason he felt it was important that he should shut the boot on the other car.

  In the open boot he saw that something was wrapped up in a blanket. He pulled at the blanket and an impossibly white hand with long, delicate fingers fell out, touching his hand as it did so. He felt the hand’s coldness on his skin and he jumped back in horror. In a state of shock he stood there, staring at the unmoving hand. All he knew was that it belonged to something human and something very dead.

  Chapter One

  Tuesday 6th January

  Mac smiled as he read the legend on the shiny brass plate out loud.

  ‘The Garden City Detective Agency.’

  It sounded very grand but at that moment the agency consisted of one detective, himself. He looked up and down the street. No-one was nearby so he gave it a quick polish with his jacket sleeve. A sudden ray of winter sunlight caught the brass plate and made it sparkle.

  He smiled and, thinking positively as he’d been told he should do, he put it down as a good omen. He made his way down the hall to his office. The top half of the door was frosted glass with the words on the brass plate emblazoned in gold and black lettering. Mac had thought it an extravagance but his friend Tim had insisted on it. He said that all the best detectives in the movies had office doors just like this. Just to be really authentic Tim had also placed a bottle of whiskey in one of the desk drawers.

  The office was somewhat minimalist at the moment containing only a hat stand, an old desk big enough to play table tennis on and three chairs, one for him and two for the clients. Clients, he thought, now that would be a fine thing. He’d been a policeman for the better part of thirty years but this was all new to him. If he was honest he’d also have to admit that recent events had knocked his confidence somewhat. He’d always been so sure of himself before but now? He just didn’t know and that scared him.

  It was only eight thirty in the morning and the office was eerily quiet. After half a year of not working this all seemed so strange to him. Perhaps it was strange because his old office had been nothing like this. ‘His office’ back then had been a desk in a large room where he sat with his team of detectives. He could go there any time of day or night and there would always be someone working and something going on.

  Mac felt a pang of self-pity and sat there allowing the silence to close over him. A familiar deep tiredness began to seep into his veins and the insidious thought of going home to his bed and diving back into the darkness that had engulfed much of the last six months ran though his head like a siren’s song. He jumped when his mobile phone rang.

  ‘Dad, are you alright? I tried home, are you at the office?’

  It was his daughter Bridget and she sounded concerned. Mac collected himself and tried to sound upbeat.

  ‘Yes, I’m here, sitting and waiting for something to happen.’

  ‘Don’t worry Dad,
something will happen I’m sure, you just have to be patient.’

  ‘I wish I was as sure as you.’

  ‘It’s going to take a little time but hang on. You need to be working, you can’t…well you need to be doing something.’

  She hadn’t said it but he knew what she meant. He’d spent too long moping around the house feeling sorry for himself. He knew he needed to be working, yet he felt so tired and useless.

  ‘I know Bridget, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Don’t forget that Tim said he might have a client for you soon and you said you’d do some research on the internet to keep you busy. Have you changed your pain patch?’

  ‘Yes, I put a new one on before going to bed last night.’

  Mac wouldn’t be able to function without the small, square pieces of clear plastic that he stuck on his shoulder every couple of days. One side of the patch was sticky, spread with a glue that contained a powerful analgesic, powerful enough to temporarily push back the constant gnawing pain in his lower back.

  ‘Good. Anyway it’s your birthday in a couple of weeks, look in the bottom drawer on the left. Sorry I have to go now, good luck Dad.’

  He opened the drawer and pulled out a hat box. He opened it and smiled. It was a new charcoal grey fedora hat. He looked at his old one and thought that it reminded him of himself, old and creased and battered.

  In a sudden surge of determination he threw his old hat into the waste bin and put on his new one. It fitted perfectly. He went over to the window, now rain streaked from a sudden winter shower, and looked at his half reflection in the glass.

  He smiled. He’d always worn a fedora. He’d got his first one when he made detective and kidded himself that it made him look a little like Humphrey Bogart. His wife Nora always used to tease him about it. The smile left his face and his eyes misted up as the memory washed over him.

  His reverie was interrupted as his eyes focussed on what was happening on the other side of the glass. The window looked out from the back of the building onto a large car park. It was early January and, although not actually freezing, it was cold enough. Rain was falling on a middle aged woman who was standing unmoving and blank eyed just a few yards away. Her long hair now resembled rat’s tails and her make-up was running. The tweed jacket and skirt she wore were sodden and shapeless.

  Mac opened his back door.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he shouted into the rain.

  A gusty breeze splashed his glasses with rain. The woman didn’t move.

  ‘Please come in, you’re getting very wet.’

  The woman seemed to awake as if from a trance. She looked around her, nodded wearily and made her way into the office. Mac got a large wad of paper towels from the washroom and gave them to her. He then made them both a cup of tea. She drank her tea in silence while Mac busied himself polishing his rain-spattered glasses. He looked over at the woman. He hadn’t been interested in anything lately but he found he was interested in this strange woman.

  He guessed she’d be in her forties and still had a good figure. Although her clothes were wet through he could see that they were obviously very good quality as were the shoes. Around her neck was a single lustrous string of pearls. He was fairly certain they were real. He gave her all the time she needed as she attempted to dry herself with the paper towels.

  Eventually she looked sheepishly up at him and said, ‘Thank you…er …’

  ‘Maguire, Mac Maguire.’

  ‘Thank you Mr. Maguire, I don’t know what came over me, I don’t normally…’

  ‘Don’t worry, we all have our moments,’ he said with complete sincerity. ‘I can see you’re troubled, is there any way I can help?’

  ‘I don’t know...’ she said, looking around the room for a clue. ‘What do you do here?’

  ‘I’m a private detective,’ he replied, feeling slightly silly.

  ‘A detective?’ she said in wonder. ‘I’m not particularly religious but perhaps God has sent me here. Oh, Mr. Maguire, I’m in such pain!’

  She burst into tears and Mac held her hand while feeling a strong temptation to join in. When she quietened down a bit he went and got more paper towels.

  She dabbed at her eyes as she said, ‘I’m so sorry for the exhibition Mr Maguire, it’s so unlike me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You said you were in trouble, how can I help?’

  She took her car keys out of her bag and placed them gently on the desk. On the fob was a small picture of a young girl in a clear hard plastic holder. She caressed the picture with her finger.

  ‘That’s the reason I was so upset, that’s a picture of my daughter Hetty, my only child. She was ten when this was taken but she was a bit of a wild child even then. She’s twenty two now…no, she was twenty two is probably more correct. Late yesterday evening I drove to Luton and saw my daughter lying on a slab. She was dead. I identified her and afterwards I drove home, had a cup of tea and a biscuit, brushed my teeth and slept. I slept well and woke up at six thirty, as always, and had a good breakfast while watching the news. I decided that I needed some shopping and so I thought I’d come into Letchworth. I parked the car but after locking the doors I dropped my keys. As I picked them up I saw her photo, it’s been on my key ring for years but in that moment it was like I’d seen it for the first time. I remembered in that split second how much I loved her and all the dreams I had for her and then I realised that I would never ever see her again. My daughter was dead. It was just too much for me, I’m afraid.’

  She started crying again but more gently this time. Mac held her hand and waited.

  ‘Mr Maguire, no parent should see their child dead should they? I have no-one now. My husband died when Hetty was nine, not long before this photo was taken. I’ve often wondered would she have gone off the rails so spectacularly had her father lived.’

  ‘Tell me about Hetty,’ he asked gently.

  She made an attempt to pull herself together.

  ‘Oh dear! I haven’t even introduced myself, how rude. My name is Janet, Janet Lewinton and I live just off Turnpike Lane in Ickleford. We’ve lived there ever since David, my husband, got a job at the bank in London. He hated the city and so he used to drive to Hitchin Station at seven every morning and catch the train. We were living there when Hetty was born, seven pounds and six ounces. The happiest moments of my life were in that house. Just me there now.’

  She shook her head as if she were trying to clear it.

  ‘Anyway you wanted to know about Hetty. She was wild alright and scared of nothing. In a young child that can be an endearing quality but in a young adult it can be…well, dangerous I think is the word. She was clever too, she got all her A levels and went to university. She studied psychology, she’d always been interested in it. I’ve heard it said that people who study psychology do so not to understand other people but to understand themselves. I think that might be true. I don’t think Hetty ever understood why she did certain things, certainly I didn’t. Anyway she went to the University of Bedfordshire in Luton which, all too unfortunately, was something I persuaded her do.’

  ‘Why was it unfortunate?’

  ‘I didn’t want her moving too far away, just in case, so I thought Luton might be a good choice being only a few miles down the road. She seemed to do alright but in her last year I knew something was wrong, she’d stopped calling me and didn’t come home in the holidays. She was only a few miles away but she might as well have been on another planet. She rang me when she got her results, a two-one, not a bad result really and I asked her if she was coming home but she made some vague excuses, things she had to do she said, and that was the very last time I talked to her. She just disappeared Mr Maguire. I tried to find her and, although Luton’s not such a big place, I never could. A friend of hers told me that she’d gotten into drugs in her last year, quite seriously into drugs. She’d spotted her one night in an area called High Town where she was selling herself. I couldn’t believe it Mr. Maguire, my beautiful troubled daught
er was a prostitute. I often wonder if she had gone somewhere else would it have happened? Was it all partly my fault?’

  She dabbed at her eyes again with a paper towel.

  ‘Anyway I went there many times looking and looking but I never saw her again until yesterday. It’s not right, her dying like that, tossed into the boot of a car like a bag of rubbish. And no-one cares, no-one but me. The police certainly don’t, I even overheard a policeman say that she was ‘just some prossie who’d overdosed’. Just some prossie, yet they’re all someone’s daughter, aren’t they? I’m never going to have any closure unless I find out what happened, how she died. I want to hire you Mr. Maguire. One can imagine all sorts of terrible things, even if you only find out how my daughter passed that would be a blessing.’

  She looked at Mac with such pain in her eyes that, even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t have refused her.

  Chapter Two

  Luton Police Station was red brick and, like most police stations, stolid and quite unremarkable. Mac was grateful that there was a ramp outside leading up to the main entrance. Although he could do stairs if pushed he preferred not to. He was never quite sure where to put his crutch and he was scared of tripping up as any type of fall might leave him in abject pain for weeks afterwards. Although it was only a short walk he found that his back was grumbling by the time he reached the front door.

  Inside a woman constable manned an enquiry desk and there was a queue. When it was finally his turn he asked the policewoman if he could see Detective Inspector Carter. He gave her one of the business cards Bridget had printed for him and she ordered him to take a seat.

  He looked up at the clock on the wall, it was a quarter past ten. At eleven o’clock he was still waiting and wondered if all private detective work was this boring. He had to keep standing up and shuffling around the confined waiting area every ten minutes or so to stop his back from stiffening up. By half eleven he’d read every poster on the notice board and was just about to call it a day when a young detective called his name. Mac followed him down several corridors and was puzzled for a moment when the young man gave him a questioning look as he ushered him into an interview room. The room contained only four chairs, a table, some recording equipment and a very grumpy looking policeman in his late thirties.