23rd September
I
slept heavily but woke up refreshed and keen. Within forty minutes of the alarm jolting me into the day I was pulling into the nick’s car park, already trying to guess what the day would hold. I hadn’t been able to resist making a few phone calls the previous evening, I’d wanted to know what was happening today, but everyone I’d called had been tight-lipped. An arrest was imminent, but few knew the person’s identity.
Swiping myself into the building, I made my way to the meeting room, which was more compact than the previous one, only capable of housing about twenty of us. I was one of the first, arriving at the same time as Bill Harrison. I hadn’t seen him since he’d searched Connor’s house with me a couple of days ago. He had his same team on their way and I could hear them noisily coming along the corridor, with Lila loudest of all. Jerry was making her laugh at something he had in his pocket. I was intrigued, but not so much that I could be bothered to ask him. Wingsy had already taken a seat, so I sat next to him. At one minute to five, DCI Nottingham walked through the door and shut it behind him.
‘Are we all here?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to risk waiting.’ He made his way to the chair furthest from the door. ‘Only a couple of us know who our target is today. I’ve got Bill and his team of six, Nina and Wingsy, myself, Simon and Kim here. Apart from us, only the Chief knows that our target is working on this nick.’
Stunned silence. Some uncomfortable looks were exchanged. I remembered the noises I’d heard on Friday evening, from the room next to the briefing room.
‘It’s not an officer; it’s one of the contractors who’s been on the site, painting and what not. That’s another reason for it being so early: there are three contractors working here and the other two will be here at 7am. Kim’s to go in the van with the entry and search team. She’ll brief you on the way. You go in, do your thing, arrest him for the murders of Amanda Bell and Jason Holland, and then Nina and John will join you. The suspect’s name is Gary Savage. Grounds for arrest are a DNA hit on Holland. Anyone have any pressing questions, as I’m handing you the warrant and leaving you in Kim’s hands?’ Without waiting for us to say anything, he got up and walked out, leaving the door open. We stood up, glanced at one another and left without a word.
In the yard a couple of minutes later, Wingsy and I watched our uniform colleagues piling into the van. We’d all made the workmen cups of tea from time to time. On several occasions I’d popped to see Alf and found him in his cubbyhole amusing at least one of the decorators with his navy stories. Last to get into the van was Kim, carrying a file and a notebook. As we approached, she was handing out photographs of Gary Savage.
‘Sarge,’ shouted Wingsy. She looked at him. ‘Grounds for arrest are a DNA hit but what other details do you have?’
‘A hair was found on Holland’s body. You’re not making the arrest so you don’t need to worry about it.’ She pulled the sliding door of the van shut and began her mobile briefing.
Wingsy was holding the car keys in his hand, pressing the remote unlock button, attempting to locate our car in the badly lit yard. ‘Best get going, mate,’ I said. ‘We didn’t even get an address.’
‘Yeah, and that briefing was shite,’ he said, marching towards the car whose indicators had flashed. ‘Just what is going on here?’
W
e stayed out of the way while Bill and his team entered Savage’s terraced house. It was nothing out of the ordinary, though on the outside at least the decorator’s house could have done with a lick of paint. The last one out of the van was Kim. She came over and got into the rear seat of our Golf, bringing the cold in with her.
Her first words to us were, ‘One of Savage’s hairs was found on one of Jason Holland’s stab wounds. Holland had twenty-seven identifiable wounds inflicted on him but unlike Amanda, who drowned in her own blood, he would have died just from those. It would seem that he was left to bleed to death.’
A pause allowed this information to sink in. She continued, ‘Not going to need you two for much, as the senior CSI is on her way. You’re here only in case anything mundane needs doing.’
The interior light in the car came on as she got back out again. I looked over at Wingsy in the driver’s seat. He was shaking his head as he watched her walk towards the house under the orange glow of the lamppost. ‘Must be a full moon,’ he said.
‘Perhaps she’s just not a morning person?’ I said. ‘Let’s try not to rub anyone up the wrong way after just a couple of days.’
‘Take it you didn’t get three sheets to the wind last night or you’d not be quite so charitable. Who’s that just come out of the house?’
I couldn’t make out the figure clearly but could see the high-visibility part of a police stab-proof vest heading towards us. A few seconds later, I recognised Lila’s cropped red hair.
Wingsy let the driver’s window down as she approached. ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘Are we needed?’
‘Right, he’s been nicked, and Kim, or Sergeant Cotton as she’s told me she prefers, has asked that you two have a quick look in his car and his works van. Both are parked on the road.’ She handed Wingsy two sets of keys and pointed with her free hand at some parked vehicles on the other side of the street. ‘The white van and the blue Ford. Oh, and she said to tell you to wear gloves. And if you find anyone in the boot bleeding to death, be sure to let her know before you call an ambulance.’
‘You’re having a good morning too, then, Lila?’ I asked.
We all looked up as car headlights came towards us. The senior crime scene investigator, Joanna Styles, pulled up behind us. Wingsy and I got out of our car. We waited beside our vehicle for the latest arrival to get out of her white van. She was met with a trio of genuine ‘Morning, Jo’ greetings and was filled in while we waited for the uniform officers to bring Savage out. She chatted to us as she sorted out her files, camera and equipment. We told her as much as we could, but it turned out that she knew more than us anyway. That didn’t surprise us. Wingsy and I left her to it and returned to the task in hand.
‘Ford or van?’ asked Wingsy.
‘You romantic. Mel’s a lucky girl. Ford, just in case someone is in the boot.’
A cursory search of the Ford revealed nothing much, except the man’s obsession with fast food and scratch cards. The transit van was a little more interesting. The rear double doors on the van were unlocked. Shining the torch over the floor showed little but a couple of dust sheets in the far right corner. A glint of metal stood out against the dirty white floor.
‘Is that – ’ I said.
‘A knife,’ said Wingsy. ‘Better wait for Jo. I don’t want to climb all over the back of this van.’
‘I’ll go and let her know,’ I said. ‘I can see them leading a bloke out of the house so she can’t go in there yet. She may be glad to start out here.’
Jo was a CSI, which made her a civilian employee in our force. Being a civilian, she was never allowed to be the first through the door in a volatile situation, and from the noise Mrs Savage was making it was best that Jo gave the house a wide berth for now. From across the road I could hear Mrs Savage hollering something about someone hanging around the past couple of nights in the street near their car and how the police hadn’t done anything to investigate it. Over the noise, I explained to Jo what we’d found and waited for her to get her equipment. She came back over to the van with me, shining her torch through the open doors.
‘Best organise a recovery truck for this van,’ she said. ‘I can’t risk getting in the back of it in an uncontrolled environment. I need to examine it under cover. The knife’s covered in blood.’
S
uspect in custody, vehicle seized and the house searched, Wingsy and I went back to Riverstone nick and headed for the interview remote viewing room, equipped to allow us to watch Savage’s interview, actually taking place in the ground floor custody area, from the CID offices on the second floor.
Pierre and another detective Wingsy and I didn’t know had already started interviewing Savage. For a long time it was slow progress; often he gave only a slight nod of the head in answer to questions put to him. But then Savage seemed to go to the other extreme. He avoided Pierre’s last question, not by refusing to answer, but by rambling on about his mum. As fascinating as it was to hear that the old girl loved a game of bingo but never went to the bookies, it wasn’t what we wanted to know. DCI Nottingham, who was also watching the interview with us, didn’t look too interested either. Several times he sighed, stopped writing and threw his pen down on to the desk.
‘Gary, this isn’t relevant. I’m asking you about Jason Holland,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ve told you that your DNA was found in the room where his body was discovered. Did you know Jason Holland?’
‘No, officer. I didn’t know him.’
‘Have you ever been to 17 Preston Road?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘When were you there?’
‘I can’t remember the date but the council sent me to price up a job. You can check with them. Some old fella had died
and the place was a right mess. I was there for about twenty or thirty minutes and I cut my hand somewhere upstairs. May have dripped a bit of blood upstairs or down. I can’t remember where. There was nothing in the house at all to stop the bleeding so I may have wiped the cut anywhere. Check with the council. Is someone talking to them? Bloke called Andy, Andrew Wells, I think. I’ve got his number in my phone, or just ring the council and ask for him. He’ll tell you,’ said Savage, red in the face. He appeared satisfied with his answer. We were not.
‘How did you cut your hand, Gary?’ asked Pierre.
‘I caught it on a nail at the top of the stairs,’ answered Gary without a second’s hesitation. He nodded along as he spoke. ‘See here?’ he said, holding out his left hand towards Pierre. ‘There’s a bit of a scar here. You can still see it. I showed it already to that nurse in the cells. She marked it on a piece of paper.’
I thought Gary was going to laugh, he looked so relieved. It made no difference that when he’d been booked into custody the nurse on duty had marked his injuries on a body map diagram. He still had to explain his hair on a dead body, not his blood dripped on to the floor.
Wingsy leaned closer to me and said in my ear, ‘Do you think Pierre’s got much more to go before he challenges him on his hair and the knife?’
I was just about to answer when Pierre explained that the DVD recording the interview was about to run out and it would be a good time for a break.
‘We can ask him in a minute,’ I said to Wingsy. ‘If he doesn’t come up here, we’ll go and see him in the cells. See if he needs us to do anything.’
As soon as all parties had left the interview room, Pierre called my mobile to find out where I was. By the time Nottingham gathered up his notes to leave, Pierre was making his way into the room to see us. He shut the door and sat down in the chair recently occupied by the DCI. Wingsy
and I had been busy leafing through the information we had gathered on Savage, his wife, his home and his two vehicles. It hadn’t taken long. We had three documents. The first was his Police National Computer printout showing that he had been arrested once for criminal damage, which was how we had his DNA on file and had been able to match him to the hair found on Holland’s body. Secondly, there was ‘stop check’ information which showed that Savage had been stopped twice late at night in his van, returning from work around the Gatwick area. The checks carried out by patrols had shown that all was in order and he had been allowed to continue on his way home. The final piece of paperwork was a crime report of a burglary reported by his wife four weeks earlier. Some minor personal items including cash had been stolen while the Savages were having dinner at Mrs Savage’s mother’s house.
‘At the moment, we have a hair on a dead body. The hair is Savage’s. The body was in a room which Savage said he went into. The hair may have got there innocently.’ Pierre looked from Wingsy to me and back again. As he continued to speak, his eyes rested on the crime report. I’d highlighted the missing property. One of the items was a hairbrush.
He sighed, avoided eye contact and said, ‘The thing is that the knife you found was covered in blood. Even if the van doors had been locked, it might not be Holland’s blood. Was there anything else that stood out to you about the van or car?’
‘Not a thing, Pierre, not a thing,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Is it looking like we’re gonna have to bail this bloke?’
‘It’s not too good at the moment. We’re waiting on Jo Styles’ update but there’s nothing else right now. She’s gonna let us know if the knife was or could have been the murder weapon for Bell or Holland. She was meeting with the pathologist when she left Savage’s.’
He stood up to go. Wingsy and I did the same. We walked to the Incident Room. The smell of paint was barely detectable.
‘Y
ou two,’ said Kim Cotton to Wingsy and me. ‘Need you to go and see someone. It’s Holland’s ex-wife.’ She handed me a sheet of paper with scant details on, turned and stomped off across the Incident Room in search of someone else to patronise.
‘I’m warming to her,’ I said to Wingsy.
‘Know what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just upgraded her to git status. What a miserable mare. Right, who we seeing?’ He glanced at the paper then handed it to me. ‘Check out this address,’ he said. ‘It’s two doors away from Belinda Cook.’
On the way, we discussed whether it was a coincidence.
‘It’s likely that they know each other,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know all my neighbours.’
‘What we have here,’ said Wingsy, ‘is a woman who worked as a prostitute turning up with time unaccounted for between her last sighting and being killed. Her cousin saw her a week or so before we found her body, described her as preoccupied, and two doors away from the cousin lives our second murder victim’s ex-wife.’ He flashed a look at me. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘What do I reckon? Glad I’m not the DCI having to explain to the Chief why there are two mutilated bodies in my division and the only two nicked so far appear to be innocent men.’
‘Yeah, and I can just see Nottingham explaining that the really bad news is that the nick’s toilets won’t get painted either.’
Belinda Cook’s house was on a T-junction. I parked the car in the road leading to her house, about two hundred yards away. The house was clearly visible across a playing field.
‘We getting a cab the rest of the way?’ asked Wingsy.
‘Funny, mate. Just thought that, as the ex, Chloe, is one side of Belinda’s house, if we sit here for a bit someone of interest might come or go.’
A double-decker bus drove past us and turned right at the top of the junction, heading towards the town centre.
‘Looked like Alf on that bus,’ I said. ‘Keep seeing him everywhere.’
‘Perhaps he’s the murderer,’ said Wingsy. ‘He cuts them up and puts them in his boiler.’
‘First off, the victims haven’t been cut up, and secondly, the size of the nick’s boiler in this warm weather, it’d take him about three months. Place would stink.’
‘Maybe he gets the bus all over the county and drops bits off in rubbish bins.’
‘Wingsy, shut up.’
After a few minutes of not much happening, I was just about to suggest we walk over to Chloe’s when the front door of the house we had worked out was hers opened, a man came down her driveway – and went into Belinda’s.
‘That looked as though he let himself into Belinda’s with a key,’ said Wingsy.
‘Yeah, it did. Or else the door was left open. Either way, he’s not just a passing acquaintance.’
Deciding against walking two hundred yards – as I said, it was a warm day – I started the engine and drove to the top of the road. We crossed to Belinda Cook’s house and rang the bell. Several minutes later she answered the door, but this time she only opened it a fraction.
‘Hello again, Belinda,’ I said. ‘Can we come in?’
‘No, not at the moment,’ she replied.
‘We just have a couple more questions about Amanda,’ I tried.
She hesitated, glanced behind her, then nodded and let us in. Once inside, Wingsy made a point of closing the door behind him so we could both clearly see the space the men’s shoes had occupied.
‘Tony came back for his shoes, then?’ said Wingsy.
Belinda crossed her arms in front of her and shifted her weight on to one foot. ‘What exactly do you two want?’
‘Truth would be a start, Belinda,’ said Wingsy. ‘Help us to find your cousin’s murderer instead of lying to us. Who else is here in the house now?’
All three of us turned to the top of the stairs as a voice said, ‘That’d be me, mate.’ Heavy footsteps sounded on the carpet, bringing the size tens towards us, bearing the enormity of Belinda’s house guest who, fortunately at this stage, took his time to reach the bottom of the stairs, giving me and Wingsy a chance to react. Both of us were wearing equipment harnesses. The slow descent would give us time to reach inside our suit jackets if necessary.
‘I’m Tony Birdsall,’ he said. ‘I asked Belinda to keep it quiet that I was here. I’ve got family around this area I haven’t seen in a while and didn’t want to spoil the surprise.’ Tony’s dark eyes looked from me to Wingsy, then settled on Belinda before crinkling at the corners. ‘But thanks, Bel.’
Belinda blushed. Bloody hell. She was under this man’s spell.
‘Mr Birdsall,’ I said, ‘we need to get some details from you and ask you about where you’ve been for the last week or so.’
‘Of course,’ he said, waving us through to the living room. ‘Please, let’s sit down.’
Seated, cutting straight to the chase, Wingsy said, ‘Did you know Amanda Bell, Tony?’
‘Yes, I did. We used to go to school together many, many years ago. It was infant school, St Agnes, other side of town. My mum and dad split up and my mum took me to live with her. We moved away and I didn’t come back here for years.
Think the last time I saw Amanda was over eight years ago. She was pregnant with her little boy – Kyle, is it?’ Tony looked over to Belinda who nodded. He continued, ‘Kyle is eight – saw that on the news, poor bugger – so she must have been just about to have him when I knew her. I’ve only been back in the country three days. You can check my passport. I flew from Malaga to Gatwick. You can check that, right?’
‘Yes, we can, Tony. Can I take a look at your passport – get the number, that kind of thing?’ I asked.
Tony turned to look at me and the intensity of his stare was overpowering. It wasn’t so much that he was
good-looking
with piercing brown eyes; it was that he had such a presence. No, not a presence, more of a command of the room. He was a man used to getting his own way.
‘Of course.’ A smile and then, ‘I won’t be a moment.’
I listened to the footsteps make their unhurried path upstairs. ‘How long have you known Tony?’ I asked Belinda.
‘Couple of years off and on,’ came the reply.
‘He come over from Spain often?’ I asked.
‘Well, you can find that out from his passport, can’t you?’ said Belinda. I doubted that we were going to get much more from her today.
Having got the details we needed, Wingsy and I made our way along to Chloe Holland’s house. On the very short journey, I whispered, ‘Couple of fucking weirdos, Belinda and Tony.’
‘Couldn’t agree more, duchess. He’s a twat and she’s a silly cow. How do you think Chloe’s going to be?’ he muttered.
‘Not nearly as pleasant,’ I said, moving aside to avoid a ripped black sack, full of used nappies, at the top of Chloe Holland’s driveway. Wingsy gagged.
A warm breeze touched us as we made our way down Chloe’s path. Someone nearby was frying chips; the grease hung in the air. Hope it’s not coming from Chloe’s house, I thought, as we rang the bell. It had taken two days to get
dead man’s pong out of my hair; I didn’t want to be catching a whiff of chip fat for the remainder of the day.
Chloe opened the door. Great, I thought, a chain smoker – even better.
‘Chloe Holland?’ asked Wingsy.
‘Yeah. You gavvers?’ said the delightful Chloe. She took a drag of her cigarette and screwed up one eye while she exhaled the smoke over her shoulder. A toddler started to cry in the background. She turned her head further and said, ‘Curtis, will you shut the fuck up.’
‘Yes, Chloe. In answer to your question, we are police officers. We’re here about Jason. Can we come in?’ Wingsy said.
‘What’s that moron done now?’ she asked.
‘It really would be best if we didn’t do this on the doorstep. It is serious,’ Wingsy said. She paused to look at him. Some part of her brain was working as she wandered back inside the hallway, pulling up her baggy pyjama bottoms. I saw Wingsy hesitate as he went to step into the smoke-filled house. It made me think of an act with stage fright appearing on
Stars in Their Eyes
.
Our entrance into the living room disturbed a cat defecating on the shiny, threadbare carpet. Chloe stepped over the turd to turn the sound down on the forty-two-inch plasma television. ‘Have a seat,’ she offered.
I looked at the sagging sofa, piled high with clothes, an overflowing ashtray and another cat. You’re a dirty, disgusting slag, I wanted to say, but instead I asked, ‘We may need to write. Is there a table and chairs in another room?’
‘Yeah.’ She sighed. ‘But the other room’s a bit of a mess.’ She sidestepped the turd again and took us to the kitchen, the place dirty plates went to die. Fag still in her mouth, she bent down to pick up the howling Curtis. ‘Just going to put him down for a nap,’ she said, disappearing towards the stairs.
‘Gonna need to get all of my clothes dry-cleaned again,’ I said to Wingsy when I was sure Chloe was out of earshot.
When she returned, she put the first cigarette out before lighting another and clearing some space at the kitchen table. The three of us sat down. Wingsy went first.
‘Chloe, we have some bad news. Jason was found dead three days ago.’
She stopped puffing on her cigarette. ‘Dead,’ she said. ‘What – an accident? A fight? I can’t believe it. I used to see him in the shops, the pub from time to time. What happened?’
‘We’re not entirely sure, but his death is being treated as suspicious; a murder investigation has begun,’ said Wingsy. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Dunno. Two weeks, three weeks? No, wait. Some police officer came round to see me ’cos he’d been missing for a few days. Tall blond bloke in uniform. Asked a couple of questions but, as I say, we split up a while ago now – years ago. He’s been with Annette for about three years. I hadn’t seen Jason for a while before the other copper came round.’
‘Sure, Chloe,’ said Wingsy, ‘we’ve got a record here of what you said, but just in case you saw him after the police spoke to you but hadn’t got round to telling-anyone…’
She sniffed and inspected her dirty fingernails. ‘I don’t really talk to many people here. Don’t go out much. I’ve only been here a couple of months.’
‘What are the neighbours like?’ I asked, thinking about Tony leaving her house a few minutes ago.
‘Her up there’s OK,’ Chloe pointed her thumb in the direction of Belinda’s house. ‘Her cousin got killed.’ Chloe sat back in her chair. A light went on somewhere in her head. ‘You think they’re connected?’ Ash fell on to her lap. She brushed it on to the floor.
‘We’re not sure at this moment,’ I told her. ‘Why did you and Jason split up?’ I wasn’t trying to take the piss, genuinely, I wanted to know.
Chloe shrugged. ‘He thought he could do better. She tapped the side of her head with her right index finger.
‘He wasn’t right in the head. Hung about with some weird friends. Had a couple of mates who gave me the creeps. Wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with them, know what I mean?’ She pulled her food-stained dressing gown over her chest. The chest that had been spilling out throughout the conversation until this point. When it came to filling in the boxes on her description form, I wouldn’t need to ask Chloe what tattoos she had.
‘Who were his friends?’ I asked.
This was met with another shrug. ‘You’d have to ask Annette. He was a bit secretive about them. He’d go off and meet them, not tell me where he was going or who with. Had a couple of rows about it but I never suspected him of cheating on me. Why would he?’
I ignored that comment. Instead I said, ‘And the break-up between you was amicable?’
‘Yeah, totally. He wanted to go and live abroad. I didn’t. Dirty on the Continent.’
And you’d have built up a great germ resistance living here, I thought. There were probably stray dogs in Lisbon with better hygiene than this woman.
We had what we needed and my lungs had been punished enough. I got up to leave and Wingsy followed suit. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘how often do you speak to your neighbour, the one whose cousin died?’
‘Belinda? Once or twice a week. Her bloke’s been here today; you just missed him. He was offering to take some rubbish to the tip for me. Told him not to bother – that’s what the council’s for. Just an old sofa, fridge and some bikes. Hardly takes up any room in the front garden.’
‘That was good of him,’ I said. ‘He pop in often?’
‘No. That was the first time for a couple of weeks.’