‘What was her name?’ asked Barbara. ‘The woman. The other officers wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Sullivan,’ said Fry. ‘Sheena Sullivan. She’s a hairdresser, here in Wirksworth.’
‘The girl at …? Oh, I think she did my hair once.’
‘She says she met your husband on a speed awareness course.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Barbara. ‘He met too many of the wrong kind of people on that.’
There was a big fireplace, and a heavy beam dividing the living room. Upstairs, a wide landing was in use as a home office, a computer workstation occupying one corner, bookshelves lining the wall.
Fry looked out at the rooftop views over Wirksworth, and the actual magnolia tree in the garden. From here, residents had the best outlook: eastwards across the town, not at the ragged wall of abandoned quarry immediately behind their houses. An area had been dug out behind the house, as if in preparation for foundations. She remembered the pile of breeze blocks and building materials.
‘What are you planning, Mrs Dean?’ she asked.
‘A kitchen extension. Charlie had been promising it to me for years, but he never seemed to have the money. The property market has been so depressed, you know. He was finally getting round to it, when…’
Fry nodded. It was strange that someone else had found a source of extra cash, as well as the Turners. Or perhaps not so strange.
‘Mrs Dean, do you know of anyone who might want to harm your husband?’ she asked.
Barbara gave her a small, humourless smile.
‘Well, that’s obvious,’ she said. ‘Me.’
The vehicle examiner had Charlie Dean’s wrecked red BMW 5 series up on a ramp when Fry arrived in the police garage. It was a complete write-off, the front end crumpled beyond recognition, the roof peeled back by the fire and rescue crew to free the occupants. Dean himself had been dead on arrival, his body crushed by the bus, but Sheena was in hospital in Derby. Doctors were hoping she’d escaped life-threatening injuries thanks to airbags and her position in the rolled car when the bus hit it.
‘Were the brake lines cut?’ Fry asked the examiner.
‘Looks like it at first glance. It’s becoming a bit of an epidemic.’
‘Sorry?’
‘We’ve had quite a number of incidents around the county of brake lines being cut in the last few months. They all appear random at first, with no apparent intention of harming any specific victim. A bit of superficial investigation turns up several vehicles damaged in the same street, which suggests mindless vandalism, though of a particularly reckless kind. But usually some of the cars turn out to have had their fuel lines cut instead, which is the real clue.’
‘You’re talking about fuel theft.’
‘Yes. A litre of fuel costs almost one pound forty pence at the pumps now, and thieves are looking for an easy way to steal petrol. Most filler caps have secure locks these days, but it’s perfectly possible to drain petrol from a car by cutting through the fuel line, if you have the opportunity and a few simple bits of equipment. Of course, these guys aren’t experts, just chancers. On some vehicles, they mistake the brake line for a fuel line and find themselves draining hydraulic fluid instead of petrol. But they’re never going to put their hands up and admit their mistake, are they?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Fortunately, no one has suffered a serious accident as a result of one of those incidents. Before now, anyway. But I dare say there are a few motorists driving around Derbyshire testing their brakes at regular intervals, convinced that someone is out to get them.’
‘Mr Dean was just unlucky that he was on such a steep hill, then.’
‘Maybe so.’
Ursula Hart was one of the partners in estate agents Williamson Hart, Charlie Dean’s employers. Though it was Sunday and the office wasn’t normally open, she’d agreed to meet Fry in their old fashioned premises just off St John’s Street in Wirksworth.
‘He was a good estate agent in a lot of ways,’ said Hart. ‘Great at doing the hard sell without putting off the buyer completely, which is a rare skill these days. But we were going to have to let him go.’
‘You were?’ asked Diane Fry. ‘Why? Are you cutting back? Is the business in trouble?’
‘No, no. Well, not since we found out what Charlie was up to, thank goodness.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Oh, it was a clever scam. After completion on a property, he was maintaining contact with many of our clients – buyers and vendors alike. He got himself into a position of trust by concluding a successful transaction, which can be quite stressful for clients. And then he was using that trust to advise people on financial matters and brokering insurance policies, which of course he wasn’t qualified to do. And he certainly wasn’t doing it on our behalf. Charlie Dean had quite a nice little earner going there. Well, we couldn’t tolerate that. Our company’s reputation was at risk.’
‘He sounds like a fairly typical con man,’ said Fry.
‘I suppose you’ll say that’s what an estate agent is anyway. I’ve heard it all before.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that at all. I don’t have enough experience with your profession.’
‘You don’t own a property yourself?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Well, if you’re looking for somewhere in the area … we have some very nice starter homes. Or perhaps a rental property?’
Her hand hovered a pile of brochures, but Fry stared at her coldly, and she slowly withdrew it.
‘Not appropriate, I suppose?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Well, some time when you’re off duty, perhaps.’
Fry didn’t respond. She couldn’t imagine herself house hunting. And if she ever did, it wouldn’t be here. Not in rural Derbyshire at all, in fact. She’d be terrified of turning into the sort of person who felt obliged to have a wood-burning stove and logs neatly stacked up in a wicker basket. A nice, modern loft apartment in the centre of Birmingham would be about the mark. Not that she’d ever be able to afford one.
‘So when did you find out about Mr Dean’s unauthorised activities?’ she said.
Ursula Hart laughed. It was quite a dirty laugh, almost a snigger.
‘Did I say something funny?’ asked Fry.
‘Unauthorised activities,’ said Hart. ‘It sounds like a euphemism. Particularly apt for Charlie. We found out what he was up to when one of his girlfriends wrote to us and shopped him. It seems he’d dumped her and she wasn’t happy about it. So she wanted revenge, and decided to get him into trouble. Hell hath no fury and all that. That was a bit remiss of Charlie, I think. He’d let her into his secrets. I suppose he must have decided to trust her.’
‘Always a mistake.’
‘Well, not always…’
‘And when was this exactly, Ms Hart?’
‘About two months ago. Obviously, we had to investigate her allegations. But the evidence seemed pretty conclusive. So we’d taken a decision to sack him next week. My partners will be relieved that it isn’t necessary now. This sort of thing always creates awkward scenes and recriminations.’
‘Were you planning to report him to the police? It sounds as though Mr Dean’s activities were illegal.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Reputation, you know.’
‘That again.’
‘It’s important in business. We have too many competitors in the property market. If people start to hear bad things about us, they’ll go elsewhere with their properties. It was bad enough that Charlie was messing around with these women of his.’
‘Women? Ah, you said “one of his girlfriends”.’
‘Exactly. I gather the latest one was with him when he crashed the car.’
‘Sheena Sullivan.’
‘I don’t know her. But there have certainly been others over the years. He was using our properties for his assignations, you know. Any that had been left standing empty. If he was handling the marketing of the property he had access to the keys for accompanied viewings. We knew about all that, thanks to the woman scorned.’
‘We’ll need the name of this woman who wrote to you,’ said Fry.
‘Will you? Isn’t that a confidential detail?’
‘Not in a murder inquiry, I’m afraid.’
‘Ah, well. I suppose there might still be some collateral damage to our reputation, then.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Fry. ‘It depends if we can get anyone in court, and how they plead.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, a not guilty plea means a full trial has to take place – witnesses, cross-questioning, all that. Every relevant detail will be explored, and it can go on for weeks. A plea of guilty avoids a lot of that, and the hearing is over more quickly.’
‘I see.’
‘So it’s in all of our interests to get as much evidence together as possible and create a nice watertight case from the start. Then the defence has no room for manoeuvre and is more likely to go with a guilty plea to get a lesser sentence for the accused.’
Hart smiled. ‘You’ve convinced me, Sergeant. You’ll have full co-operation from this office. Let’s get the bastard who did this thing.’
30
Monday
Sean Gibson was gaunt and bony, with yellow skin that barely covered the network of veins and arteries in his body underneath.
When Fry saw him on Monday morning, she was reminded of Juliana van Doon’s description of a waste product in the blood, bilirubin. It caused the yellow colour in bruises, and it was also what turned the skin yellow if there was too much for the liver to get rid of. But Sean Gibson wasn’t suffering from jaundice. The colour of his skin was the result of age, and a body abused by alcohol and drugs, not to mention a bad diet.
Sometimes, Fry wondered if the human race was evolving in reverse, gradually regressing to stunted troglodytes with primitive language skills and shorter lifespans. Sean Gibson was well along that evolutionary path.
DCI Mackenzie’s team had Gibson in an interview room, sweating it out as he made a world record attempt for the number of times he could say ‘no comment’.
‘We’ve pulled his brother in too,’ said Mackenzie. ‘He had a trail bike hidden in a shed at his address. The tread on the tyres matches the tracks made in the wood.’
The DCI had called in to see Fry while a DS from his team took over the interviewing. He was a big man, over six feet tall and wide across the shoulders, and he had the air of a rich uncle visiting distant cousins. Fry recalled the first time she’d worked with him. He was the only person who could ever have thought she was a farm girl. Everything was relative.
‘The theory we’re working on is that the Gibson brothers were aware that the Nokia mobile phone had been left behind at the crime scene and were making an attempt to retrieve it when they thought it would be quiet. Lucky your local farmer Mr Maskrey spotted him. Though obviously we can’t condone the use of a shotgun.’
He gave each of the local CID officers a shrewd stare, weighing them up in that way an experienced officer did, even with colleagues. His gaze dwelled briefly on Gavin Murfin, then moved on to the younger DCs, who seemed to meet with approval.
‘They would have had to watch the forensic teams working at the scene,’ said Mackenzie, ‘to be able to tell when the water level had fallen sufficiently and there was no one around. I don’t know how they did that.’
‘From the rocks above,’ said Fry automatically.
‘Oh? Well, you’re probably right, DS Fry. Local knowledge and all that. But we were lucky that your vagrant identified Ryan Gibson.’
‘My vagrant? Do you mean the man who calls himself Spikey Clarke?’
Mackenzie looked at her with his head tilted on one side. She’d seen that mannerism in him before, and she’d come to dislike it.
‘Didn’t you know that Mr Clarke witnessed the incident with the farmer and got a good look at the biker?’ he said.
Fry shook her head. Mackenzie reached out a hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to pat her on the arm consolingly.
‘Well, don’t worry, Diane. It’s all dealt with now. And we’re getting some useful results from the analysis of Mr Turner’s computer too. That’s a bonus.’
As soon as his back was turned, Fry cursed under her breath. This wasn’t supposed to be the way it went.
‘I’m very glad we were able to raise the priority of this inquiry and move against some known suspects,’ said DCI Mackenzie before he left. ‘Thanks to good intelligence.’
Irvine looked at Fry when he’d gone. ‘What intelligence, Diane?’
Fry threw her hands in the air. She didn’t know. But she was afraid she might be able to have a good guess.
Later that day, it struck Fry that Nathan Baird was almost as thin and gaunt as Sean Gibson, though perhaps for a different reason. But only perhaps. His sharp cheekbones were a design feature, like the oak finish desk in his office at Prospectus Assurance.
‘Insurance fraud?’ he said. ‘Yes, everyone regards it as a victimless crime. But the fact is, fraudulent claims add about fifty pounds a year to the insurance bill of every honest customer. Undetected claims fraud costs the industry more than two billion pounds a year. And it’s rising every year.’
‘What type of fraud?’ asked Fry.
Baird gestured at her eagerly. ‘Home insurance frauds are the most common, though the highest-value claims are in the motor insurance sector – that costs nearly six hundred million pounds a year. We’re talking big numbers either way, Sergeant.’
Fry had heard of some common types of fraud. In the more traditional scams, a criminal set himself up as an apparently genuine insurance adviser, complete with a shopfront and a variety of products, though motor insurance was favoured. Unsuspecting customers paid a premium and were provided with false documents giving the impression their car had been insured. In one variation, the illegal adviser simply advertised their services through a newspaper or on the internet, often targeting specific vulnerable communities. In London, the Metropolitan Police had arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering offences. He was alleged to have made thirty to forty thousand pounds a year by trading as an illegal insurance adviser, targeting members of the Chinese community and students.
Increasingly common were whiplash claims after car accidents, where the extent of injury was difficult for doctors to diagnose. Organised gangs operated ‘cash for crash’ schemes, staging collisions in which some unsuspecting motorist crashed into the rear of a vehicle that stopped suddenly with its brake lights disabled. Just like the cannabis gardeners, those at the bottom of the food chain in those schemes were often poor and ignorant immigrants, who were paid a few hundred pounds to put themselves physically in harm’s way. Any genuine injuries they sustained were collateral damage as far as the gang leaders were concerned.