An Eye For An Eye

2-1

2

Detective Inspector Nathan Stone got out of his car and looked around, his hazel eyes taking in everything. A small crowd, almost certainly made up of the residents of Mead Street, had gathered and he noted the anger etched into the faces of several of them, Asians all, anger that was brought into sharp relief by the blue light that continued to flash from the top of the police patrol car parked outside Bhaskar’s Convenience Store on the corner of Mead Street and Victoria Road.

Nathan hoped the attack he was there to investigate wasn’t racially motivated. If it was, he didn’t doubt there would be a lot of trouble, especially if he couldn’t solve it quickly.

The non-Asians in the small group didn’t appear angry, but there was shock, sadness, and a mix of other emotions on their faces. They stood in small knots, their conversations hushed as if they were afraid to either draw attention to themselves or disturb the scene.

In addition to the patrol car outside of Bhaskar’s, the occupants of which were nowhere to be seen, a second patrol car was down the road, filling the gap between a green Kia Picanto and a red Ford Ka; the officers from that patrol car were keeping the crowd back from the shop, an easy task since none of those gathered showed any inclination to push forward. There was a restlessness to the crowd, but none of them seemed willing to do more than stand and watch events, despite there not being much to see.

An ambulance occupied the middle of the road, preventing cars passing, its siren silent, though the blue lights atop it flashed every few seconds, illuminating the little that evaded the light from the patrol car. The paramedics were leaning against their vehicle, leading Nathan to conclude there was nothing that could be done for the victims in the shop; that was not good news since it meant he was almost certainly there to investigate a murder rather than an assault.

“Jones is here.”

The comment drew Nathan’s attention away from his surroundings and across the car to his partner, Detective Sergeant Stephen Burke, whose emerald eyes were looking past him to the other side of the road. Following Stephen’s gaze, Nathan spotted the silver Mercedes that belonged to Doctor Daffyd Jones - it was easily recognised by the personalised number plate ‘DRDJ94’ - the senior medical examiner for Branton Police, and the man who attended virtually every murder scene, thankfully a small number, in the town.

“Let’s hope he’s been here long enough to have the preliminaries out of the way.” While he had great respect for the doctor, Nathan had little patience for the almost compulsive rituals he went through before getting down to work.

Nathan got the first surprise of his new case when he stepped through the door and saw who had responded to the initial nine-nine-nine call.

“What are you doing here, Frank?” His voice revealed how unexpected it was to find his long-time friend, Sergeant Frank Wells, there. “I didn’t think you were allowed out of the station anymore, something to do with too many crashes while on patrol, wasn’t it,” he said, a smile playing about his lips.

Wells shot his friend a less than amused look and pushed away from the shelf he was leaning against. The limp he had been left with by his last crash obvious the moment he took his first step towards Stone. “I’m here because Vaughn thought the situation might need someone with tact to handle the uniform side of things; since I was already on patrol, shepherding WPC Beck,” he indicated the very nervous female constable who, to Nathan’s mind, seemed far too young to be in uniform, “on her first time out, he figured I was the best person for the job.”

“Judging by the looks on the faces of the people out there, tact is definitely going to be needed; fortunately, I have Stephen for that.”

Wells gave that comment the smile it deserved; he knew Stone was perfectly capable of being tactful, polite, and considerate, when the occasion called for it.

After trading a few more comments with his friend, while his partner looked on without joining in, Nathan made his way to the back of the shop, where he could see Dr Jones. As he got closer he saw the two women on the floor of the shop, their limbs entangled and their chests sporting matching red stains.

In appearance, both women were similar, to the extent that Nathan wondered if they were sisters, or otherwise related - both were short, barely over five feet, though it was hard to be sure of their heights given their position on the floor, clearly of Indian descent, and wearing long saris. The only immediately obvious differences between the two women were that one of them looked older than the other and had a peaceful, almost serene, look on her face, as if she had accepted her fate.

“It’s definitely murder then,” Nathan said, taking in the scene at the doctor’s feet. In addition to the two murdered women, there was a mess of chocolate bars swimming in a pool of alcohol from the broken bottles knocked off the shelves.

“That’s what I like about you, Nathan, you’re not afraid to state the obvious,” Daffyd Jones remarked, looking up over his shoulder at Stone. “I hope you’re paying attention, Stephen; if you ever want to make it to inspector, you need to be able to look at a crime scene like this and know instantly what it is you’re dealing with.”

Though there was no hint of it in the doctor’s appearance, both detectives knew him well enough to know when he was being sarcastic - it wasn’t difficult, when he wasn’t talking about purely medical matters, Daffyd Jones was nearly always being sarcastic.

“Working with Nathan is a constant learning experience,” Burke said with a perfectly straight face.

A trace of a smile played about Daffyd’s lips as he straightened, not that that made much of a difference since he still needed to look up to match eyes with the two detectives. At five-foot-five he was short, though the lack of inches in his height was made up for by those around his waist.

“I take it we’re looking at a shotgun, Daff,” Nathan said, deciding that it was time to become serious and begin his investigation.

Daffyd nodded. “I’d guess it was a sawn-off, fired at a distance of about three feet, to judge by the spread of the pellets. They were thrown backwards into the shelves, no surprise there, being shot at such close range, and I’m sure I’ll find bruising as a result of that, but they won’t have felt anything. Both women died instantaneously. It’s not much, but it might be a comfort to their family,” he said in a compassionate voice. “I’ll be able to tell you more after the P.M., but right now everything looks pretty straightforward from my side of things.” He looked sadly at the women at his feet. “Who’d want to do a thing like this?” he asked, more of himself than of either Stone or Burke.

“Have you got anything else to do here?” Nathan asked of Daffyd, aware that there was little he could do until the doctor was finished.

“No, I’ve done all I can,” Daffyd said, knowing that he had done nothing except confirm that the two women were dead. “Are forensics on their way?”

That was a question to which Nathan didn’t know the answer, and he turned to Sergeant Wells in the hope that he did.

“They’re about ten minutes out. Apparently a bus broke down on Castle Bridge, they’ve had to divert. I imagine it’s chaos around there.”

“I imagine you’re right,” Nathan agreed. “Let’s hope they don’t run into any more delays. Do we know who the ladies are?”

“Not for certain,” Wells answered. “We believe they are the wife and mother of the owner, a Mr Vikram Bhaskar, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.” Anticipating the next question, he said, “We don’t know where Mr Bhaskar is; according to his neighbour,” he gestured in the direction of Victoria Road to make it clear which neighbour he was referring to, “he left in the shop’s van a little over an hour ago.”

“Who reported this?” Nathan asked.

“A Mrs Dormer, she was walking past the shop on the way home when she heard the gunshots. She’s outside in the crowd now, at least she was.”

“Did she see anything?”

Wells shrugged. “She didn’t mention anything, but I only spoke to her briefly.”

Nathan regarded him steadily for a moment before saying anything more. “Would you start the house-to-house enquiries? I’ve a feeling we won’t learn much, even if there are a few nosey neighbours out there, but anything is better than nothing.”

“Sure thing,” Wells said agreeably, he knew as well as Stone did how important the most minor of details could be. “Come on, Elsa.” He gestured with a jerk of his head for the young female constable to follow him. “Anything else you want me to do?”

Nathan shook his head. “I trust you to get on and do anything that needs doing,” he said, “without me needing to tell you.” Though the sergeant had never passed the detective’s exam, he had more than enough experience to know what might need to be done to help an investigation.

***