Criminal conudrum

[Mouse]

There are times, like this, when I really wish I was writing fantasy fantasy and not real-world fantasy. *sigh*

(BTW if you're a beta and don't want spoilers, don't read this!)

Anyway, the situation is this: One of my PoV characters is about to get arrested. Now, this character has stayed in a holiday home where in a nearby field a body was discovered. Their friend lives next door to a house where a body was discovered. They stayed in a hotel where a deliberate fire was started. Now they're about to be arrested for the death of somebody they used to work with.

My question is, would the police see the links and think this one character could be involved with all of it? The first murder was in a different county. Everything else has happened in London.

edit: yes, I've spelled conundrum wrong. The shame.

 

[alchemist]

Sorry to pull up a tragedy, but when those two girls were murdered by Ian Huntley a few years ago, didn't the inquiry highlight very poor inter-police force communication? The problem (for you) is, things might have improved by now.

Although looking at how you've set it up (character not directly involved in previous incidents; maybe not even interviewed), I think it's quite plausible they wouldn't see the links. Not without looking for them.

 

[Mouse]

Yeah this is it. The character hasn't been interviewed for anything (except the fire, and that wasn't an official suspect interview type thing, more that they spoke to everyone who was there), and isn't directly involved with anything. I didn't want to write it and then have the reader think 'why can't the police see the possible links with the other incidences.'

 

[iansales]

The police have an integrated database called HOLMES which they can query. If they gave a statement for the body in the field that would be on record. It's unlikely their friendship with the person who lived next door to a murder is unlikely to be discovered, unless the police use social media to check up on the person as part of the investigation. Likewise for the hotel one - if they gave a statement they;ll be in the system, otherwise someone would have to think to record the guest list.

Check out Dead to Me by Cath Staincliffe. It's a prequel novel to the Scott & Bailey series and is excellent on modern police procedure for a Major Incident Team syndicate.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I have no real knowledge of how the Police organise themselves, other than a number of excellent documentaries on the telly and a few bits of real life experience, but I think your question is - would the police involved in the last bit have any knowledge of any of the other?

They might if his involvement was on official documentation, i.e. he was a suspect for any of the other major offences, had been questioned etc..., when the pull up his 'files' (ok I think they have search engines and these new-fangled electronic computers now...I see Ian has the actual name of the real system, very good), otherwise I would assume that they are just focused on that individual case and probably have no knowledge.

It sound like there are no obvious standout links to the death next to the friends house, and if they were staying at the hotel they will be on a list of witnessess/possible suspects but may not be standout either. And as alchemist says, inter-force communication may not be great.

 

[Mouse]

Thanks, Ian & VB. With the field one, they disappeared off back to London before the body was discovered so I don't think that'll come into it.

I've just realised that I'd set up a teeny detail which I was going to refer to a lot later in the story, but would probably come up in this arrest. Which is a pain. And that is: the suspect for the fire gave my character's name as their alibi. I wasn't going to reveal this to the reader until later. But it would come up in the arrest, wouldn't it? Unless the fire suspect refused to give my character's name, but I wouldn't see why they would. Hmmm.

 

[iansales]

Bear in mind that the procedure is very specific and governed by PACE. In interviews, they only question the interviewee (witness or suspect) on what they can otherwise prove in order to catch them out in a lie and so encourage them to confess. So if the suspect claims they were never in the vicinity of the crime, but the police have CCTV footage showing their car on the street, then they will use that as part of their interview strategy.

 

[Mouse]

I just Googled PACE and it turns out I've already read about it! Shows how much I remember.

With this new murder, my character had previously kicked seven bales out of the victim and while there was no witness to that, there was someone who left just before it happened so knows it can't have been anybody else who did it.

 

[iansales]

Check out that Staincliffe novel I mentioned earlier. It'll really help you get an idea how the police investigates murders these days.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I remember I rather harrowing documentary they did following a real murder inquiry, when they discovered the burnt remains of woman in the Hertfordshire countryside.

They did eventually find the killer - a man living in Hackney, but it took a very long time to put all the clues and threads together, I think months and months. In this case they had been a couple who worked in the same hotel. Hence in a way it was logical that the police homed in and eventually found the evidence they wanted (Including a very disturbing sequence when you saw CCTV footage of the man breezing into his flats with a clearly light suitcase [empty], then a bit later coming back out and really struggling with the now very heavy weight of it [poor murdered woman in it].)

In your case if your killer just killed someone randomly, (in fact it seems they are all a bit random - all a bit Henry: Protrait of a serial killer) then that makes the investigation very much harder for them.

 

[Mouse]

Ta. I've seen a bit of the TV show but didn't know it had come from a book.

VB, that sounds grim. Pondering CCTV is going to be my next thing to worry about, I think.

 

[iansales]

The book is a prequel based on the TV show. It's about when Bailey joined Gill Murray's syndicate. It also says "the first..." on it, so it looks like there's going to be a series of books.

Incidentally, series three starts filming in November this year.

 

[Mouse]

Yeah I just read on Amazon actually, that the TV show came before the book.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I read a lot of murder mysteries and cop fiction (much more than SF/F for the last few years), and I would say that the police could see the connections if you wanted them to, or not if you don't. It would very much depend on the questions they asked and the things that crossed their minds during the interrogation/interview process, which you control. You can easily make the case either way, as far as the reader is concerned.

Someone has to see it, and then they have to realize they've seen it.

Even now, in the era of instant accessibility to information, one has to ask the right questions to get the answer -- and there is something to be said for information overload, as well, for preventing connections from being made between agencies/jurisdictions.

 

[Mouse]

It's doing my nut now because I can't decide whether I want the police to see the links or not. The more I think about it, the more I don't see how they could miss it. Going back to the field body murder, one of my other PoV characters was arrested for that but was released because of lack of evidence. Now, this other character who's in the frame, can easily be linked back to the field murder again. Pah. He also already has a criminal record, though it's only for driving offences.

 

[Ursa major]

If your police forces/investigating teams have strong evidence that someone else was (or four someone elses were) involved, they may very well spend most of their effort** trying to prove these (perhaps in both senses of that verb). And if this happens on all four of the cases, and your PoV character either is peripheral to one or more of the theories, or doesn't feature at all, you can plausibly keep them off the police radar for as long as you like, I would have thought.





** - Think of the Rachel Nickell case.

 

[Mouse]

Well this is the other trouble I'm having because there's no evidence at all, so no real suspects for anything.

 

[Ursa major]

Can I ask a question? Do you have one or more PoV's in amongst any of the investigating teams?

If not, you shouldn't worry too much about what they're doing except:

• where the actions of the police impinge on your PoV characters (directly or indirectly**);
• you don't want the police's actions to look too much like deus ex machina.

** - Indirectly meaning that they hear about it from others.

 

[Mouse]

No, no PoVs amongst the police. I've only got four PoVs in the whole thing. I've had one character arrested before and I researched all the interviewing techniques and how long they can hold someone for without charging them and all that, before, but it was a really short scene.

Now I think it's going to be a much longer scene and I'll have to get more involved with it. I know my characters won't know what's going on so I have some leeway there, but I want the police to be behaving in the right way.

 

[Abernovo]

Who paid for the holiday home and the hotel room(s)? Follow the money is a common phrase. If you want the police to find a link, a credit card billing might be the way. Even worse if they bought something that could have been used as an accelerant (however innocently).

On the other hand, they might miss such things if they weren't looking for them and didn't link the two incidents. So it might be cause for pulling the suspect in a second time at a later date, when it does get flagged up.