Murder or suicide?

Murder or suicide?

The call came into the station at 17:23, just as the London train was leaving. A body had been found in a bungalow in Harrow Road, Ruislip. The station master called his friend the Super at Cannon Street as he thought this should be handled by the police. He couldn’t hear him from that distance so he tried the telephone.
            Detective Superintendent Patrick Jefferson, known as Jock, hitched up his red and blue underpants over his trousers and shouted down the corridor for the duty DI, Detective Inspector Conan Kincaid – ‘Dick’ to his friends.
He sauntered idly into the super’s office.
            ‘Er, what’s up Jock?’ he asked hesitantly
            ‘A body has been found in Ruislip in suspicious circumstances and I want you to handle the case’. He took it down from the wardrobe and handed it over.            ‘Can you drop this off at the left luggage office at the station on your way to the crime scene?’ he asked. ‘If it is closed, try the right one.
            Dick set off in his new car to Ruislip with his partner Sergeant Ian Doyle, known to all, and especially the sundries, as Sid. The ceremony had been at Harrow Town Hall and had been enjoyed by all who attended, the pink glazed muffins had been a real hit around the camp fire. He wasn’t very happy with his Focus but the Mark II Jaguar had to go as it didn’t really suit his image any more and he needed different glasses now.
            They reached the horrific scene where the body lay fully clothed, across the bed.
            ‘Cause of death Fred?’ asked Dick of the ME kneeling by the side of the bed.
            ‘Probably a heart attack brought on by the increase in the price of All Bran’ said the manly extrovert, nodding to the packet on the floor. ‘I’ll know more when I get back to Asda and check out.’
            Sid mused over this new information, wondering if they had a cereal killer on their hands but Dick was casting his experienced eye over the body, it was the other one that wouldn’t focus properly, and had come up with a different theory.
            ‘You see these two bullet entry wounds to the back of the head and the 27 stab wounds between the ribs from the rear?’ he said to his assistant. ‘ I am fairly sure it is suicide. The last call from the bed side phone was at 23:42 which is very close to the time of death, according to the’use by’ time on the All Bran packet’
            ‘What number was called?’ asked Sid?’
            ‘It was 998, I think it was a cry for help that went badly wrong’
            Sid was sceptical about this. In his experience, there was normally a note left when someone took their own life. He had sent some blood samples for DNA analysis at the CSI ( Cannon Street Investigation ) crime lab. The results had come back, showing it was oyster DNA.
            ‘That settles it,’ he thought, in his opinion suicide was a shellfish act.
            His boss had been right all along.