The Cloned Identity, page 1
Title page
The Cloned Identity
David Hughes
ARTHUR H. STOCKWELL LTD
Torrs Park Ilfracombe Devon
Established 1898
www.ahstockwell.co.uk
Publisher information
© David Hughes, 2012
First published in Great Britain, 2012
2014 digital version by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
This is an entirely fictional story, and no conscious attempt has been made to accurately record or recreate any real-life events.
Chapter 1
“Joe, this had better be good,” I snarled at the startled chap sitting behind the neat and tidy desk as I burst into the office, my dramatic entrance designed to convey my displeasure to anyone who witnessed it. I stopped in front of his desk and looked down at the man I had all but shouted at. “You do know this is the first break I’ve had since I started here?”
“Yes, boss; not my fault, honestly. The Chief Super insisted we recall you. I am sorry.”
I looked at Joe. I could see the genuine hurt in his eyes.
“OK, Joe, give me ten minutes then come in.”
Joe nodded and I turned and made my way to the cupboard in the corner which served as my office. I knew it was my office because it had my name on the door – no, not on a brass plate, not even on a plastic plate, but on a piece of card sellotaped on. A temporary measure, I had been assured on my first day – well, that was six months ago. Did I make a fuss about it? No, of course not. I had more important things on my mind, like catching criminals.
I entered my office and tried to slam the door shut, only the door wouldn’t slam because it had been fitted with one of those damn automatic closing devices; so how was I expected to show what mood I was in? I rounded the bare desk, dropped into the swivel chair and swung round. Reaching inside my jacket, I unclipped the bleeper and threw it on the desk.
“Bloody bleepers!” I said to myself.
Talk about electronic tags for criminals! We were already fitted with them. I brought my fist down on the desk with a thud, which I truly hoped would be heard on the floor above. Angry? Why should I be angry? I mean, I had only spent the last six months pushing around bits of paper relating to really major crimes concerning lost cats and stolen video recorders and not forgetting shoplifters; then, the first day I have off, there I was in bed with this gorgeous women when the bloody bleeper went off and she leapt out of bed like a scalded cat and started running round the bedroom screaming for me to get dressed and get out. I finally calmed her down by chucking the duvet over her and sitting on top of her. When she had stopped shouting, mainly owing to the fact that she couldn’t breathe, I let her up and asked what the hell was wrong. She told me her husband had a bleeper and when mine went off she thought he had come home and caught her. As you can imagine, the erotic moment had disappeared and with it my first chance of a leg-over in six months. So I was really happy. I was just acting mad to keep Joe on his toes. Blasted thing! I snatched the bleeper off the desk, opened a drawer, chucked it in and slammed the drawer closed.
A dark sadness came over me as I leant back and surveyed my cupboard. To think six months ago I was in a proper office in Scotland Yard, the hub of the Metropolitan Police, famous throughout the world! I was part of a thriving team with plenty of manpower, dealing with proper crimes. I had been looking at a brilliant career. I was well in with the right people.
I had made detective inspector three years before most would have done; then it had all come crashing down, all because of a woman – a woman called Sylvia, to be exact. Now, Sylvia had been left on her own at home while her powermad husband had gone off chasing his career. So there was this woman, older than me, at a time in her life when she needed to be reminded that she was still attractive and desirable. So along came me, young, virile and hungry. I had already had more than my fair share of women, but Sylvia was something else. You couldn’t get bored with her. Every time we got it together, she treated it as though it was going to be her last time and she made sure she enjoyed every minute – no lying back and faking it with her! She wouldn’t let me go until she was satisfied – and I mean satisfied. Sometimes she would need three or four orgasms before she was happy. We went through all the fantasies she had stored up during her life, plus some more she had dreamt up since we met. I had never felt so satisfied with sex in my life before. She really drained me; and I felt sorry for her husband, who probably never knew what he had been missing. Not only that, but he was the sort who would probably go out and pay some tom for what his wife could give him if he only knew how to treat her.
But all good things have to come to an end, and of course her husband found out – and no, he didn’t appreciate the fact that I had been doing him a favour, looking after his wife while he got on with his career. And I soon found out that it had not been a wise move on my part to sleep with the wife of my boss. He knew more influential people than I did, and my career took a nosedive. I was transferred out to the very fringes of the Met, to Milton. Milton was a dump – a sort of retirement home for hasbeens where a major crime was a lost pension book or a missing cat. It was slowly driving me bonkers.
My self-commiseration was suddenly interrupted by a meek tap at the door and Joe came in holding a folder in his hand.
“Sit down, Joe.” I gestured to the only other chair this cupboard had space for. “OK, what’s the flap about?” I asked.
“Well, boss, we have had a serious assault, possibly a rape.”
“Good grief, Joe! I know that’s a bit unusual for round here, but surely it could have waited till tomorrow.”
“Yes, boss, I agree. I had everything in hand, but apparently the Bishop plays golf with the Chief and—”
“Hold on. Are you saying someone’s raped the Bishop or his wife?”
“No, boss,” said Joe with half a grin, “not even his daughter – that’s if he has got one. No, it is one of his flock. She is very prominent in the local church circle, fund-raising, flower-arranging – that sort of thing. She also did a lot of charity work – not the usual sort of woman who gets raped, I would have thought.”
“Joe, let me tell you I’ve dealt with many rape cases and there’s no such thing as a ‘usual sort’. It can happen to any female; all she has to be is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most rapes are done on impulse and are not premeditated.”
“Sorry, boss. I didn’t mean—”
“That’s all right,” I replied, trying to sound nice.
The pain caused by my reprimand showed in Joe’s face. Joe was a good ‘by the book’ copper, and had he had more flair he would have gone higher than detective sergeant. As it was he seemed happy to stay where he was, to see out the three years to his pension.
“So, Joe, what have you done so far?”
“Well, boss, it’s all in there.”
He passed over the folder, which I took and put in front of me unopened.
“I’ll read that later. Tell me in your own words.”
“Right. Well, when the call came in I went straight to the scene and made sure the uniforms didn’t throw all the evidence away. The victim had been taken to hospital before we arrived, so I sealed off the house and made sure nothing was moved. I was waiting for Mel and her crew to arrive to do the forensic, when this chap turned up and demanded to know what was going on and why we were there. Anyway, he became quite upset. I asked if he was the husband or a relative, but he became really abusive and cleared off. Later I got a radio call from the Chief; I was to report back to him immediately. So I rushed back and he carpeted me – had a right go at me – and ordered me to find you and hand the case over.”
I looked at Joe. His eyes were a bit misty as he stared down at the desk; it showed what a ‘conscience’ copper he was. I knew without looking in the folder in front of me that it would be spot on with facts which were facts and not opinions or presumptions.
“So what was it about, Joe? What did the Chief say exactly?”
“Well, you know I mentioned that chap who appeared while I was down at the scene?”
I nodded.
“It turned out he was the local vicar. I didn’t know that at the time because he wasn’t wearing a dog collar and he didn’t identify himself.”
“Go on,” I said.
“The vicar – he went and rang the Bishop and told him I had been deliberately obstructive and rude. So the Bishop phoned the Chief and I got a right rollicking — Ah, sorry, boss,” he stammered as I looked at him in surprise. That was the first time I had heard Joe swear since I had been there.
“Don’t worry, Joe. That’s the way it goes sometimes.” I opened the folder and flicked through the pages. “Looks like you’ve done a good job here, Joe – a good job.” I hoped my praises made up for the way he had been treated. “Right, Joe, take me through what’s in here,” I said, tapping the folder.
“Right, boss. The victim, a Miss Susan Wood, spinster, aged round about forty, lives on her own. That’s what we have found out so far. It would appe
“Not an ambulance?” I asked.
“No, boss. She said she seemed so normal that she thought perhaps she had taken a sleeping pill. She had done that before, so Mrs Thomas wasn’t too worried. The Doctor arrived and gave her a quick once-over. He noticed some bruises on the side of her neck, and the way she was lying was odd, he said.”
“Odd, Joe? In what way?”
“Well, he said she looked as if someone had put her in the bed. The position she was in and the way the bedclothes were arranged made it seem like someone had laid her out.”
“You mean laid out like in an undertaker’s?”
“Yes, that’s it, boss. Anyway, he couldn’t wake her so he called for an ambulance first and then us.”
“He only called us because of the marks on her neck?”
“No, not quite. While he was waiting for the ambulance he checked her over and found some more bruises, and he was convinced she must have been attacked in some way.”
“So what you are saying, Joe, is that we don’t know for sure if she was attacked.”
“She was attacked, boss. I had a call from the hospital just a minute ago, and they agree that it looks like a sexual assault took place. Force appears to have been used.”
“Did they say how she was? Can she make a statement yet?”
“No – there’s another problem. She’s in some sort of coma. They’re running some tests, but they can’t tell us any more until the morning.”
“What about relatives – next of kin?”
“Mrs Thomas says the only one she knows of is an uncle who lives up north. I found an address for an Edward Mark in Tolchester. I’ve sent a fax to the local nick and asked them to inform him of what’s happened.”
“Well, Joe, it doesn’t look like you have left me much to do.”
My praise met with a shrug, which said, “Just doing my job, boss.”
Just then the phone rang. I answered: “Yes, sir, I am with him now.” I listened for a few minutes then said, “Yes, of course, right away,” and put the phone down.
“Chief?” Joe asked.
I nodded.
“How did he know I was in the building? Ah, never mind.”
I looked at Joe. “It appears we are to go straight away and see your friend the vicar, and explain that we are moving heaven and earth on his behalf to solve this case and we won’t be eating any bread or drinking any wine until we have.”
Joe almost broke into a smile at my sarcasm.
“Is the house on the way to the vicar’s?” I asked.
“Yes, boss, just round the corner.”
“Good. We can drop in and I can get a feel of the place.”
Chapter 2
We made our way to the garage and I asked Joe to drive so I could read through the file. Joe informed me when he turned into the road where Miss Wood lived. I stopped reading and looked at the houses.
It was a nice, quiet tree-lined road. The houses looked about fifty years old, built in blocks of four with a narrow gap between each block. The end houses in each block looked bigger because they had a bow window. The front gardens all looked neat and looked after, but boring in their similarity. Noting that there was no room for garages, I asked Joe if there was a rear service road. He said there was.
He pulled up outside number 48, which was the last house before a junction. As I got out of the car I could see the only difference between this and the other houses was the official tape across the front gate and the six-foot-six blue garden gnome wearing size-12 boots standing in the front garden. He rushed over to the gate and held the tape up for us.
“Lost your fishing rod?” I asked.
“Pardon, sir?” he said, looking puzzled.
I grinned at him as I walked past.
“I wonder how long he will take to work that out,” I said quietly to myself.
“Sorry, sir – I didn’t quite catch that,” said Joe behind me.
“Oh, nothing, Joe – just thinking out loud.”
I stopped about halfway down the path and looked up at the house. The green and white paintwork was in poor repair, but I could see that the windows and the curtains were clean. I looked at the front door. Despite the faded green paintwork, the brass letter box and the red tiles in the small porch looked freshly polished. I noted that the path to the side of the house led to a gate set in a dark creosoted, trellis-topped fence – the way to the back garden, I presumed. We carried on up to the front door, which I could see was ajar. I could see from the powder smudges where the forensic boys had been.
Using one finger, I pushed open the door and stepped into a narrow hallway. I could see it was clean, despite the darkness.
“There’s a front room, back room and kitchen down here; three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs,” Joe volunteered.
Without looking at him, I nodded in response.
I stood with my back to the front door. The stairs were on my right, the doors to the two reception rooms were on my left and the kitchen straight ahead. The hall was decorated with a faded flower-patterned wallpaper, which fitted in neatly between the picture rail and skirting board, both of which had been stained or varnished in some bygone age. I looked up the stairs, the narrow flimsy-looking stair carpet clamped into position by dark, heavy stair rods. The only thing missing from this time warp was the ticking of a clock.
“Upstairs, was it?”
“Yes, boss – front bedroom,” answered Joe.
We made our way upstairs, the wood creaking in protest at our combined weight.
The small landing was lighter than the hall downstairs. Someone had painted the doors, skirting board and picture rails white. I could see from the way the paint had peeled here and there that the painter had slapped the paint straight on top of the varnish. Here and there were traces of forensic powder.
“That door there, boss.” Joe pointed to the second door on my right.
Using my finger, I pushed the door open and stepped into a sad-looking room. Although the curtains were pulled right back, it was still dark. All the furniture was old-fashioned dark oak. There was nothing in the room to reflect the light. The room felt silent and lifeless. It seemed as though any sign of life in this room would be absorbed by the dark and lost for ever. I walked over to the bay window and confronted the heavy-looking dressing table. I looked at my reflection in the oval mirror, the image tarnished by the damage caused by age and damp to the mirror backing. I toyed with a chrome-handled brush-and-comb set resting in a glass tray, and reflected that my mother had a similar set on her dressing table, yet I had never seen her using it. I picked up the brush, and realised how unyielding it was. The head was heavy; the handle by comparison was slender and light. It had obviously been designed from the aesthetic rather than the practical point of view. Sighing, I carefully replaced the brush and turned round. The bed was between me and Joe. I looked it over – dark-wood headboard and footboard; the naked mattress looked old and lumpy. The room had a cell-like atmosphere – not a prison cell, but a monk’s or nun’s cell. It wasn’t a happy room; it was a room for a purpose. I couldn’t imagine it had ever heard the sound of laughter or the cries of pleasure of a couple loving. The floor was covered in cold, dark lino, although there was a dull rectangle by the side of the bed where I assumed a rug must have been before it was spirited away along with the bedding by Mel and her crew. They would caress it with modern technology into giving up any secrets it might hold.
