One of the benefits of being a Detective Chief Inspector was that it was one of the only jobs in which you could phone members of your team on their days off and have them in the office within two hours. That’s not to say that any of them were particularly happy, but at least they were there.
Detective Sergeant Frank Vine had, predictably, whinged and whined about it. He was starting to approach the tail end of his career and had made a few noises to Culverhouse about retirement. Generally speaking, the DCI agreed this would probably be a good idea. But then life kept throwing them curveballs. Luke Baxter, a Constable, was killed in the line of duty. Ryan Mackenzie, considered to be his replacement, had joined the team very recently.
Ryan had certainly turned heads on joining Mildenheath CID. Culverhouse hadn’t been keen on hearing that a new officer was joining the team part-way through an investigation. He was even less impressed when he found out that Ryan was actually a woman. By the time he’d just about come to terms with that, Ryan had revealed that she was a vegan and was in a lesbian relationship. Neither of those facts would have even registered with most other people. To Jack Culverhouse, it was tantamount to telling him she had three legs.
The final member of the team, Detective Constable Debbie Weston, had long been the silent engine that kept Mildenheath CID running. She never complained, always got on with the job, and was the consummate professional. How she’d been passed over for promotion to Detective Sergeant was beyond Wendy, but she suspected it might have had something to do with the fact that she was a woman.
Culverhouse had briefed the team and recapped what had happened at Hilltop Farm the previous day. He’d also passed on the message that the Chief Constable was keen for the farm to be properly investigated, and that he wasn’t particularly supportive of the idea himself.
‘Right, let’s start from the bottom,’ he said, knowing full well that his comments would rile more than a couple of members in his team. ‘Ryan, can you get some more information on the original call. See if we can get the recording, get that analysed. See if it matches any other calls we’ve had recently. Then get onto the local shops and businesses and see who’s got CCTV. People even have them on the fronts of their houses nowadays, so I should imagine he’ll have been picked up somewhere. Take a look at cars on CCTV too. Even if we don’t have the exact area covered, there’s a chance you might see a car driving in the direction of the phone box a few minutes before the call and driving away from it a few minutes after. That’s a lead we can follow.’
Ryan was nodding and scribbling down notes. Wendy sensed that she’d picked up on Culverhouse’s derogatory comment about starting from the bottom, but that she had chosen to rise above it. Good on her, Wendy thought.
‘Debbie, I need you to find out what you can about Hilltop Farm. Find out when it came into the ownership of the church, who owned it before, who owns it now. Find out whatever you can about it through the official channels. And have a look on Google Earth, too. We should be able to get a decent idea of the layout of the place. Frank, delve into the finances and Father Joseph’s background. I presume the church is registered as some sort of charity or something. Even if it isn’t, it has to make or spend money somehow. They’ll have rates to pay, land to lease, council tax or something like that. Look it all up. There’ll be some sort of paper trail, and if we find out they’re even 5p short on their tax bill we’ll have something to grab onto.’
Wendy noted that Frank didn’t look particularly hopeful of finding anything.
‘Knight,’ Culverhouse said, choosing to use Wendy’s surname, as he always did, ‘I’m going to need you to put your diplomatic skills to the test. Get onto Father Joseph Kümmel and his cronies and see if you can get a list of the residents at the farm. He won’t tell you anything, and I’m sure he’d be well within his legal rights to do so, but it’s got to be worth a shot. And after all, I’m told you have a particularly keen nose for these sorts of things.’
Wendy averted her eyes. She knew exactly what he was getting at. He’d worked out that it was her who’d expressed her concerns to the Chief Constable about a lack of action at Hilltop Farm.
‘And Steve?’ Culverhouse said, addressing DS Wing. ‘You can... Just mop the fucking floor or something. I’m going for a coffee.’