Murder in Hyde Park Read online

  Murder in Hyde Park

  Phillip Strang

  BOOKS BY PHILLIP STRANG

  DCI Isaac Cook Series

  MURDER IS A TRICKY BUSINESS

  MURDER HOUSE

  MURDER IS ONLY A NUMBER

  MURDER IN LITTLE VENICE

  MURDER IS THE ONLY OPTION

  MURDER IN NOTTING HILL

  MURDER IN ROOM 346

  MURDER OF A SILENT MAN

  MURDER HAS NO GUILT

  MURDER IN HYDE PARK

  MURDER WITHOUT REASON

  DI Keith Tremayne Series

  DEATH UNHOLY

  DEATH AND THE ASSASSIN’S BLADE

  DEATH AND THE LUCKY MAN

  DEATH AT COOMBE FARM

  DEATH BY A DEAD MAN’S HAND

  DEATH IN THE VILLAGE

  Steve Case Series

  HOSTAGE OF ISLAM

  THE HABERMAN VIRUS

  PRELUDE TO WAR

  Standalone Books

  MALIKA’S REVENGE

  Copyright Page

  Copyright © 2019 Phillip Strang

  Cover Design by Phillip Strang

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This work is registered with the UK Copyright Service.

  Author’s Website: http://www.phillipstrang.com

  Dedication

  For Eli and Tais, who both had the perseverance to make me sit down and write.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A Sunday, the first warmth of the coming summer and a clear sky. The sort of day when Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook should have been with Jenny, his girlfriend, either out and about or enjoying an early-morning spell of lovemaking. But yet again, a phone call. This time it was his second-in-command, Detective Inspector Larry Hill, a man who appreciated time at home with his wife and children at the weekend.

  ‘Hyde Park,’ Larry Hill said. ‘A body.’

  Isaac raised himself from his bed; the lovemaking had seemed preferable to a walk or a run around the block. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Hyde Park, the Serpentine, the Kensington Gardens side. You’ll have to park back from the murder site, Lancaster Gate on Bayswater Road, and walk down, two minutes if you walk briskly, four if you don’t.’

  ‘Local?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘A Chinese tourist out with a group found the body, as they were heading up to Kensington Palace, hoping to look over the fence, catch a glimpse of a royal.’

  ‘Who’s at the scene?’

  ‘A couple of uniforms, a gaggle of tourists who keep wanting to take selfies of the body with those sticks they carry.’

  ‘Ghoulish.’

  ‘It’s what tourists do. No doubt it’ll be all over Facebook, or whatever they have back in China.’

  ‘Doesn’t help,’ Isaac said. Even before the alarm had been sounded, he wondered how many had trampled over the evidence, disturbed the body, made a straightforward murder enquiry more difficult.

  He had hoped that the Homicide Department at Challis Street Police Station could have had a break for a few weeks at least, the chance for him to take Jenny to Jamaica to visit where his parents had come from. He knew she would be disappointed; he knew she’d understand. That’s what he liked about her, loved even, although he wasn’t sure why that word scared him. Maybe it was fraught with memories of lost loves, missed opportunities, or was it a fear of commitment? Was he the perpetual bachelor? he wondered. Always saying that he wanted to settle down, but when the opportunity was there, he felt a gentle doubt that became more intense, and then came the tension in his voice, the irritation at something minor that his latest love had done, and the sorrowful breakup. It had happened more than once, and he knew that for him policing was a vocation, not a job, and that his preference was for maintaining law and order, not for staying that extra time at home and working on the relationship.

  ‘I’ve made you a cup of tea,’ Jenny said as she gave Isaac a kiss on the cheek. ‘Toast?’

  ‘I’ll grab something on the way. I’ll drink the tea, though,’ Isaac said, realising that it was the wrong response. ‘Something on the way’ was going to take longer than for Jenny to make his breakfast, but there had been a murder. And once free of the flat that the two of them shared, he would be focussed, making phone calls, rallying the team, checking with the crime scene investigators. He could see by her expression that she wasn’t pleased. He hoped it wasn’t the beginning of the end.

  A quick shower, dressing in a suit, even though the weather was more suitable for an open-necked shirt, even a pair of shorts.

  ‘Jamaica off?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Not sure yet. Let me see what we have,’ Isaac said, fully aware that the trip probably was off, but unwilling to say so. He knew that he and Jenny never argued, that they were compatible, and she had never once mentioned his long hours away from home, the unwillingness to discuss important things when he came home, preferring either to sleep or to sit quietly, not talking. But there were things to talk about, Jenny knew that. A trip to Jamaica to visit Isaac’s parents who had retired back to the island, was an acknowledgement that marriage was the next step.

  Isaac knew that Jenny was hoping for a proposal, and he was considering it. He realised that marriage led to children and then on to old age and retirement, and then the inevitable. He didn’t want to contemplate the fact that he was getting older, not wanting to avoid it, but not just yet. For him, Jamaica was going to be a make or break with Jenny, although he knew that he was wrong to feel that way with a woman who deserved better. She had hinted on more than one occasion that her biological clock was ticking, a none too subtle nudge for him to make up his mind.

  ‘See you later,’ Isaac said as he walked out of the door of the two-bedroom flat. ‘I’ll call you if it’s an open and shut case.’

  ‘It won’t be,’ Jenny said.

  Outside on the street he looked up at the flat, saw her looking out of the window. She appeared to have a wistful look about her as if she wasn’t sure what to do. Turning away, Isaac got into his car and drove to the murder scene.

  ***

  A Sunday morning, the tourist season in full swing, not that the city was ever devoid of visitors, but then that was London. A cosmopolitan melting pot of peoples from all around the world, most making their way on
foot or by bus or taxi around the prime sights to visit. To the west of the murder scene, Kensington Palace. To the east, Hyde Park, albeit that officially Hyde Park had been divided into two, the area west of the West Carriage Drive renamed as Kensington Gardens.

  As expected, another tourist sight had sprung up, even more popular than the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, even more than Speaker’s Corner where anyone was free to get up on a box and make a speech, regardless of whether it was nonsense or intelligent debate, religious or not. The only rule was that whatever was said, it had to be lawful and not likely to incite violence. Not that it worried some, and most of those who spoke were open to ridicule. A great sport in his younger days, Isaac knew, to come down to Hyde Park, listen to the orators, to heckle some, to silently agree with others. Karl Marx had stood there, so had Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell.

  But today was not the time to listen to the speakers or to walk through the park and on to Buckingham Palace. Today was the time to investigate a murder.

  At the entrance to the park, Isaac parked his car, pulling off onto the pavement, a uniform standing there to show him where. Bayswater Road was busy and getting busier by the minute. Not far away, Kensington Church Street, the turnoff down to the Churchill Arms, full of Churchillian memorabilia and good beer, a decent restaurant. Larry visited it on a regular basis, Isaac infrequently; no royals in there, though.

  ‘You’ll have trouble controlling the people in the park,’ Isaac said on his arrival. Larry was already there, although he wasn’t dressed as well as Isaac and it was clear he had had a heavy night. Isaac could see that his inspector was struggling again and that he was starting to put on weight; his complexion was ruddy, and his general physical health was not as good as it should be.

  Last time the man had had a drinking problem it had been Isaac who had officially warned him about the issue, Larry’s wife reinforcing the ban on the excessive consumption of alcohol, if he wanted to avoid sleeping downstairs on the sofa.

  But Inspector Larry Hill wasn’t the biggest problem that day; it was the body that had been found floating in the reeds at the side of the Serpentine, the recreational lake in Hyde Park, its name due to its snakelike, curving shape.

  ‘What do we have?’ Isaac said.

  Isaac would have said it was scenic there, the statue to Peter Pan at his rear, the water in front of him. A couple of moorhens in the water, a pigeon nearby, hopeful of the crumbs from the sandwich that he had purchased on the way. He thought back to Jenny and her offer of breakfast. He had made the wrong choice, as the sandwich, cheese and ham, was neither fresh nor agreeable, purely filling a place in his stomach. And it was not as if he could do much at the present moment. The area had been secured by the uniforms, and no one could come along the pathway; no doubt a few tourists would be complaining. So far, the crime scene investigators, led by Gordon Windsor, wasn’t on site, and they would be another ten minutes. Then the barriers preventing entry by vehicular traffic onto the pathways had to be dealt with. Isaac remembered when the barriers had been installed: three weeks after a car had mounted the pavement in a shopping mall and mowed down six people, three dying at the scene, another in hospital. It had proved not to be terrorist related, but an elderly man suffering a heart attack, but it had been enough to raise the fear that it could happen again, and the next time, it could be a terrorist. Hyde Park could have been a target, so could Kensington Palace, even an infiltration into the building with heavy weapons, and then…

  And now there was a body in the Serpentine, a tranquil lake, boats for hire, swimming down at Lansbury’s Lido, the Peter Pan Christmas Day Race where hardy individuals would swim a one-hundred-yard course in the lake. Isaac had swum it once, and received a medal for competing, though not gold or silver or bronze. He had been a runner in his day, good enough to have been considered championship material, but then an injury, and his running days had come to an end. He had been born in London, although the bitter cold winter days still troubled him, and as he looked at the water, he remembered the intense cold when he had dived in before.

  ‘We’ve not disturbed the scene any more than we had to,’ one of the uniforms said. ‘We just brought the body ashore. There was a possibility that he was still alive.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘No. There was a doctor in the park. We asked him to look. An ambulance, standard procedure, had already been called. The doctor checked the body, nothing more.’

  ‘Any evidence destroyed?’

  ‘Not by us.’

  ‘The person who found the body?’

  ‘A Chinese tourist, no English, although there’s a translator with the party. Talk to her if you want any more, but you’ll not get much. They saw the body, took photos, phoned their friends and family back home, and called us.’

  ‘In that order?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Larry, you were here before me. Anything to add?’

  ‘Male, in his thirties, Caucasian, dressed in a tee-shirt and shorts, an iPhone strapped to his upper arm, running shoes.’

  ‘Early-morning jogger?’

  ‘I’d say so. No identification though.’

  ‘You’ve checked the phone?’

  ‘Water ingression. Forensics might be able to dry it out, get access to the memory. Apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be any other way to identify him.’

  ‘No credit cards, driving licence?’

  ‘Not that we can see. I’ve not checked him that closely, nor did the medical men, only what was necessary to administer first aid and to see if he could be resuscitated.’

  ‘How long in the water?’

  ‘You should ask Gordon Windsor when he arrives.’

  ‘He’s the senior crime scene investigator, but you should be able to come up with a rough idea.’

  ‘One to two hours. It was raining heavily last night, and it’s unlikely a jogger would have been in the park. I can’t be certain about that, as some of them can be fanatical about their daily adrenaline hit.’

  ‘A crazy bunch,’ Isaac agreed, remembering back a few years when he ran each day.

  ‘The body’s not showing any signs of exposure to the elements, although the water’s cold. It’ll take more of an expert than me to be more exact.’

  ‘Why murder?’

  ‘A heavy object to the head, some bleeding.’

  ‘Drinking more than you should?’

  ‘It helps,’ Larry said.

  ‘Helps with what?’

  ‘It helps with coming down to Hyde Park on a Sunday morning to see a dead body.’

  Chapter 2

  Midday, the scene of crime officers (SOCOs) were in full force at the murder scene. Celebrities in their own right, as the hordes of tourists stood close to the crime scene barriers watching the proceedings.

  ‘Inspector Hill’s right on this one,’ Gordon Windsor said. A smallish man with thinning hair, he barely came up to Isaac’s shoulder.

  ‘I thought he was,’ Isaac said. Not that it quelled his anxiety about his inspector. The conversation earlier about Larry’s level of alcohol consumption, his reply that seeing dead bodies was the cause, didn’t ring true. The man had never shown aversion or disgust at a murder scene before, so why now and why this body?

  Isaac had welded together a good team, he knew that; almost like a family in that each helped the other, played off each other’s strengths. Back in the office, Bridget Halloran, a wiz with a computer; she dealt with the department’s paperwork – prepared the prosecution files, followed up those responsible for collating the evidence, filing the reports, made sure the myriad of other sundry bureaucratic requirements was dealt with. She also had the added responsibility of helping Detective Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, her best friend, with her reports. Bridget was fifty words a minute on the keyboard, Wendy was lucky to manage five, and then there would be grammatical mistakes. Not that Bridget complained. She and Wendy had pooled their resources and were sharing Wendy’s house, stric
tly platonic. Wendy was glad of the company after her husband had died. Her cat – inherited from an old woman in a previous case who had grieved and subsequently died after viewing her dead son’s body – had helped, but it slept a lot and only came near when it was feeding time. Bridget, financially secure, thanks to a wealthy aunt who had left her some money, had grown tired of her layabout lover and had kicked him out.

  Larry was attempting to find out if anyone else had seen anything at the crime scene. The Chinese tourist who had found the body had not been able to give any more information. The body lay on the ground, ready for moving to Pathology after consultation with the pathologist. Gordon Windsor was wrapping up and removing his coveralls.

  ‘No identification?’ he said.

  ‘Not on this one. You’ve not found anything?’ Isaac said.

  ‘Nothing that helps. The man’s in his thirties, good physical condition; before obviously.’

  ‘Jogger?’

  ‘You’ve already asked, but yes. The clothing doesn’t offer much help. Made in China, no doubt you can buy it here as in any other country. The running shoes, Nike, are expensive, good quality. New, only been worn a couple of times. Forensics will give you a better idea on that.’

  ‘A local?’

  ‘Probably, but it’s not conclusive.’

  ‘The time of death?’

  ‘Early this morning, probably still dark when he was attacked.’

  ‘Attacked, are you sure?’

  ‘A severe blow to the head. No other reason for him to be in the water.’

  ‘In the water unconscious doesn’t mean that he would have drowned.’

  ‘He may have been able to run, but that doesn’t make him a good swimmer. If his fat content was low enough through excessive running, then he might not have been a natural floater.’

  Isaac could understand that. When he had been running competitively in his youth, short distance, not marathons, he was all muscle, very little excess fat. He had never been a great swimmer, the reason, apart from the cold, that he had not received more than a neutral coloured medal for competing in the Christmas race on the lake that was in front of them. There had been a group of them from Challis Street, young, keen, all proud of their physical prowess: Ben Tidworth, an up and coming sergeant at the time, Sally Jenkins, an educated woman who was very ambitious, very aggressive at the station when she thought she was being sidelined because of her sex, and Archie Corker, a Scot from Glasgow. A hard drinker, a hard man, who was popular in the station on account of his optimistic outlook on life, and his willingness to join every club he could and to enjoy life to the full. The only bane in his life was when someone called him Scotch. ‘That’s a damn drink,’ he would say. ‘I’m Scottish.’