Cold Death (D.S.Hunter Kerr) (26 page)

As they all made their way back to the incident room for de-briefing Hunter knew the priority was to find the attack site. That would provide them with so many answers and much needed evidence to swing the enquiry.

- ooOoo -

DAY THIRTY FOUR: 26
th
September.

Barnwell:

Hunter pulled another bacon sandwich from the pile, which Angie the cleaner and his partner Grace had made. He’d heard the pair chatting and laughing, in the small kitchen next to the incident room,
over the past twenty minutes.

Most of the team were in, hugging mugs of warm tea or coffee, munching on the surprise breakfast
and gossiping whilst waiting for the early morning briefing.

Looking around the room and listening, Hunter knew that this enquiry had just turned the corner, despite lacking the confessions to Samia’s murder. The implication from Ari that his uncle Mohammed was also responsible for his daughter’s final days and hours was the starter for the day, and with a bit of luck might just be the lever for obtaining the proper story.

Grace walked into the room with another plateful of sandwiches. “That’s it, all the bacon’s gone now,” she said plonking the plate down between hers and Hunter’s desk.

“What muck have you two raked up on someone then? You were going at it hammer and tongs back there.” Hunter bit into the warm bread.

Grace flopped into her seat and leaned across her desk. “You will never guess what I’ve just found out from Angie,” she responded in a hushed voice.

“Go on enlighten me.”

“The boss is only having a thing with that DCI from Scotland.”

“You are joking?”

“Nah, nah. One of her friends is waitressing at the Stables restaurant. The pair have been in there most evenings.”

Hunter shook his head in amazement and grinned. “Well the crafty bugger. I’ll have to give him some rib over that.”

Grace smiled herself and settled back in her chair.

Hunter took another bite of his sandwich. The mention of DCI Dawn Leggate caused him to drift away for a few moments. His parents were still staying with them as Billy Wallace and Rab Geddes still had not been caught. He’d wanted so much to sit down and sort things out with his dad but since the revelation he had not had the opportunity because of the investigation. He had spoken to Beth about it when he had finally fallen into bed the last few nights and she had told him that what she had seen of his father had been a pitiful sight. She said he had been moping round the house like a caged animal and certainly wasn’t eating properly. Hunter’s mum had also taken Beth to one side and told her that his dad was desperate for some time with him to explain everything.

The sooner we put this enquiry to bed, the better.

“You lot owe me a gallon of beer,” announced Barry Newstead, pushing through the incident room doors.

It broke Hunter’s daydream.

“You are going to really thank me for this,” he continued, waving aloft a clear plastic wallet containing a CD disc. He strode towards the large TV, switched it on with a podgy index finger, inserted the disc into the DVD player and snatched up the remote. “I spent most of yesterday afternoon with the neighbourhood team for the Parkhill Flats. Did you know most of it is covered by CCTV?”

The plasma screen fluttered into life.

“There are twenty odd cameras fitted around the outside of the place plus they also have lift cameras at each floor inside the flats. I searched various time frames between the twenty-eighth of July when we know Samia was abducted from Meadowhall right through to the first of August when we believe her body was dumped in the lake and I found this little lot.”

Hunter watched Barry’s face split with a wide grin. He knew from his time teamed up with the investigator over the years that he loved nothing more than to have centre-stage.

Barry exaggerated the starting of the play mechanism
by firing the remote at the DVD player as if he was shooting a gun. A grainy image fluttered onto the forty-eight inch screen.

“This was captured at nine-thirty-six pm on the first of August. This camera is looking down on a grassed area in front of one of the buildings.”

Suddenly in the right hand corner of the TV two men in dark hooded tops stumbled into view, struggling with a rolled-up bundle. Barry zoomed in on the hazy images.

One of the men had his back to the camera and was bent over almost dragging along the ground what appeared to be a large rolled up rug.

Although the hoods were up on both men, hiding their faces, Hunter could clearly make out the white lettering on the back of one of the designer hooded tops. The words SEMTEX was visible. He felt a surge of excitement run through him.

The team watched in silence their eyes fixed to the set. The play continued until the two men disappeared off camera with their bundle.

“I also found this footage,” continued Barry.

Another image flashed onto the screen. The pan of the camera focus was a lot wider and covered a larger portion of the complex. Into view came a section of road below a grassy knoll. Along the bottom of the screen was a line of parked cars.

“This is one of the slip roads just below the flats.”

From the top of the screen the camera picked up two fuzzy images, silhouettes at first, but their movement was evident and no one could mistake it was the same two characters, from their attire
. And they were struggling with the rolled up carpet. The one at the back slipped and his end of the carpet slumped to the ground.

The team watched as the person hump
ed it back up towards his midriff and then the pair continued waddling down the slope with their bundle until they reached the road.

Barry zoomed the footage again. It was grainy but the images could be made out, though not satisfactorily enough for facial recognition.

The pair pulled the rug towards a white van parked amongst the row of vehicles. The one wearing the SEMTEX designer top opened its rear doors and the pair loaded in the bundle. Both jumped into the front of the van and it pulled away and drove out of camera view.

Barry freeze-framed the shot. In the top left hand corner was the time and date sequence - 9:52pm 01:08:08.

Hunter knew this all fitted. The time to travel from Sheffield to Barnwell Lake was approximately forty minutes. That meant that their witness, the sex worker, Kerri Ann Bairstow had been spot-on with her timings of her sightings of the two men and the white van at the Country Park.

“And for my encore,” he added with a flourish. He re-started the DVD player. “This was captured in the entranceway at one of the internal lifts.”

The image, which flickered onto the screen, showed a floor area with a squashed up section of lift doors at the top quarter of the screen.

There was little doubt in Hunter’s mind that from the angle of the shot this was captured by a camera at ceiling height.

Suddenly into view came the person in the SEMTEX designer hoody. He was bent double dragging the rolled up carpet. Quickly following into the frame, also doubled up, lumping the other end of the rug came another hooded figure. The clarity of these images was excellent and Hunter could see that sections of pattern on the rolled up carpet were a perfect match to those of the rug Samia’s body had been found wrapped up in. He had no doubt in his mind that he was watching the first stages of her being taken away from the place where she had just been raped and butchered.

They stopped by the lift doors
, dropping both ends of the carpet and the character in the designer hoody straightened, easing out his back with his hands. As he pressed for the lift he flicked back his hood and stretched his neck. There was no mistaking that face – it was Ari Arshad.

Hunter wanted to punch the air.

“That lift is on the fifth floor. Now all you’ve got to do is some old fashioned door-knocking and you should have your attack site.”

Hunter studied Barry. A pneumatic drill couldn’t remove that sickly contented smirk on his face he thought. He was so pleased for him and so glad he had brought him onto the team.

“Ever thought about being a detective Barry?” said Hunter straight-faced, launching himself out of his seat.

The civilian investigator scrutinised him for a second then said “Detective Sergeant Kerr if I didn’t know you better I would say you’re jealous because an old hand has beaten you to the end-game.”

They both flashed a grin to one another.

“One up to you Barry,” returned Hunter wetting a finger and striking it in the air. “Well done you old fart.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment shall I. By the way I will accept payment with several pints of John Smiths amber nectar,” he finished, switching the TV off.

* * * * *

“Let me have a go at Jilani,” begged Grace after briefing.

Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw had determined that now they had the CCTV evidence damming Ari there was no rush to re-interview him and that the team should focus on Samia’s parents since no one had spoken with them following their re-arrest the previous afternoon.

He had allocated that task to Hunter and Grace whilst sending the remainder of the team across to Sheffield to find Ari and Pervez’s place especially given that Barry had narrowed down the flat complex location and the floor level.

Hunter looked up from the notes he had scribbled.

“Let me try the empathy approach – Mother and daughter thing again. It might work this time coming from me. I can guess she’s been subservient to Mohammed for years and even afraid of him, but I can’t believe deep down that she is involved in all this. My gut instinct is she’s just keeping silent because she’s more afraid of her husband than she is of us.”

Hunter stroked his chin and mused over her comments.

“Okay let’s go for it.” He clicked the top back on his pen and slid the folder of evidence across the desk. “She’s all yours.”

* * * * *

Jilani looked haggard. Her dark hair was unkempt, her red and gold sari crumpled and black streaks stained her cheeks from her crying.

Grace
could see Jilani had suffered a sleepless night and guessed that she would be jaded and feeling vulnerable. That all stacked in her favour for this interview.

An interpreter and her solicitor were present.

Hunter started the tape recording machine.

“Jilani I want to make things easy for you. Yesterday we interviewed your nephews Ari and Pervez and one of them has admitted being involved in the abduction of your daughter Samia.” Grace concentrated on Jilani’s face, watching her reactions as the interpreter repeated her opening lines in Urdu.

“He has also implicated your husband Mohammed in this, actually saying that your husband forced them to carry out the abduction under threat of violence.” Grace deliberately held back the sighting by Doctor Woolfe which negated this story so that they could hopefully stack up the evidence against Ari and Pervez.

There was a flicker in the woman’s eyes and a quick shake of the head.

“Mrs Hassan I don’t want to prolong this agony for you because what happened to your daughter was horrendous. But we have a duty to investigate this thoroughly and if we find you are involved in her murder then you will suffer the consequences. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Jilani nodded even before the interpreter finished and Grace realised for the first time that the woman had a better understanding of English than she had initially made out. That was a good thing. It would be easier now for her to look for the signs in her facial expressions and body language.

“I’m going to show you some film footage now that was captured by CCTV cameras about two months ago at Meadowhall. I must warn you it is disturbing but I want you to concentrate on it.”

Hunter got up, switched on the small TV, and started the DVD rolling. It re-ran the same footage they had shown to Ari Arshad the previous day.

As it ran Grace never took her eyes off Jilani. Five minutes had gone by when the woman dropped her head onto her chest and started weeping. Grace knew at that point that the tape had just ended without seeing it happen. “I’m sorry you had to sit through that Mrs Hassan but I needed to show you just how your daughter started her suffering. I also have to tell you that we now believe she was held for five days before she was finally killed and during that time she was violently raped.”

Her anguish increased to a sob.

“I can tell you that we now have enough evidence to take this to court and prosecute for murder. Ari has implicated your husband in your daughter’s murder and your prolonged silence in all this is not going to help you. If you continue to refuse to talk then we will suspect you are involved in this and you will also go to court.”

Jilani looked up into Grace’s eyes. Black runny kohl
eyeliner scarred her cheeks.

“Mrs Hassan I am a Mother of two daughters and if I thought my husband had been involved in their deaths I would move heaven and earth to see him punished. As a mother yourself I do not believe for one second you would want anything different. Am I right?”