Random Targets (20 page)

T
EMPLE WENT BACK
to the station at noon, leaving Vickery and Beresford to stage an impromptu press conference in Purbeck Road. He was happy to shun the limelight in favour of getting his team together so that he could bring them up to date and thank them for all the work they’d put in.

The mood in the incident room was buoyant. Someone had even cracked open a bottle of champagne. Temple accepted a glass and answered questions from those detectives who hadn’t been to the scene. He was told that DC Marsh had gone earlier to break the news of Renner’s death to his mother and father. The mother had taken it very badly apparently, but Renner senior had given the impression that he intended to cash in on his son’s notoriety.

Temple then called the hospital to check if Angel had heard the news. She had, of course, along with virtually everyone else in the country by that time.

‘I’m proud of you,’ she told him.

‘I’ll be in as soon as I can,’ he said.

‘Well, there’s no need to hurry. I’m actually feeling a bit better. And I’ve had a long chat with the doctor. He’s confident that I will eventually be able to go back to work.’

‘Of course you will. There’s never been any doubt in my mind.’

He told her he’d visit the hospital later and went to find Megan Trent, who’d spent the morning in one of the hospitality rooms. He told her what had happened and explained that for
the foreseeable future her house would be a crime scene and she wouldn’t be able to live there. He expected her to be upset, but she wasn’t.

‘I’m glad the bastard is dead,’ she said. ‘I only wish I could have been there to see it.’

‘I’ll arrange for some of your belongings to be brought to you,’ Temple said. ‘Do you have any friends or relatives you can stay with?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t have any family. I was an only child. My dad’s dead and I lost touch with my mum years ago.’

‘What about friends?’

‘Most of my pals are living in flats the size of cardboard boxes. None of them can put me up.’

‘In that case we’ll sort out accommodation at a local hotel for you,’ Temple said. ‘We’ll want you to stay in Southampton in the short term.’

‘That’s fine with me,’ she said.

‘Are you sure there isn’t someone we can call? Someone who could come and stay with you.’

‘I’m sure. I’ll be fine. I’m used to being by myself.’

‘I’m afraid you can expect a lot of attention from the media,’ he said. ‘Your name is already out there as the owner of the house. And it won’t take them long to find out that it was your information that led us to the motorway sniper and so you’re entitled to the reward.’

She stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘Is it really over two million pounds?’

He smiled. ‘Two and half million at the last count.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. It’s so much money’

‘Not in this context,’ he said. ‘Thanks to you, Cole Renner won’t be killing any more people on our motorways.’

He left her then and got a junior detective named Royce to get a formal statement from her.

‘Get her a room at one of the better hotels,’ he said. ‘I think she deserves it.’

Temple divided the rest of the afternoon between paperwork,
meetings and liaising with forensics. At least there was no need to prepare for a major trial. In that respect Renner’s death was a good result.

It would have taken weeks to get the evidence together to ensure that the bastard went down for life. The task now was to make sure they hadn’t missed anything and to get the answers to some of the big questions – like why a young squaddie in the British army had suddenly turned into a homicidal maniac.

The team retreated to the pub at six after Vickery and Beresford announced that they were buying. Temple agreed to go along for a quick one before visiting the hospital.

He found it strange to be back in the pub where this nightmare week had started. It was still uncomfortably fresh in his mind – the news that there had been a bad crash on the M27 and then the call from Beresford telling him to go to the scene.

‘Cheer up, Jeff,’ Vickery said as he sidled up to him at the bar. ‘It’s over. Your life can get back to normal.’

Temple held up his pint. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘And just so you know the task force will be officially dismantled tomorrow,’ Vickery said. ‘It’ll be up to you guys to sort things out down here.’

‘What about you?’

‘They want me to oversee the Hussain case. There’s a hell of a lot of work to be done on it.’

‘Makes sense,’ Temple said. Then he held out his hand for Vickery to shake. ‘Until the next time then.’

Vickery grinned. ‘Until the next time.’

Temple left the pub half an hour later and went straight to the hospital. Angel was excited to see him and she wanted to know everything that had happened during the day. He settled into the chair and told her. It wasn’t until he’d finished that she shared
her
good news with him.

‘I had more tests this afternoon,’ she said. ‘And guess what? The clot’s shrunk slightly. The thinners appear to be working.’

Temple beamed a smile. ‘That’s terrific news.’

‘I know. And the doctor reckons that at this rate it could be gone completely in a few weeks.’

Temple could hardly believe it. It felt as though a ten-ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It was the perfect end to a horrible week and that night when Temple got home he treated himself to a large whisky before going to bed. He slept like a log for the first time since Monday.

But that was only because he had no inkling of what was going to happen the next day.

Temple woke up early. By 7 a.m. he was shaved and showered and on his second cup of coffee.

Outside it was a bright Sunday morning. The sun had made its first appearance of the week and the sky was pristine blue. The weather perfectly reflected the mood of the nation.

The death of the motorway sniper was getting the full treatment on TV and in the newspapers. There was joy and relief that the nightmare was finally over. People living in Purbeck Road were interviewed and they described how the police had descended on their street. Megan Trent was frequently mentioned, but no one had yet spoken to her. Her neighbours described her as a quiet woman who kept to herself and none of them knew much about her.

Beresford popped up on every television channel along with Hampshire’s Chief Constable. They announced that ballistics experts had confirmed that the rifle Renner had used to kill himself was the same one used in the sniper attacks. And that he had stolen it from an army base in Wiltshire. They also revealed that shells and motorway maps had been found in his bedroom. And they mentioned for the first time that Renner’s motorbike had turned up at the scene of the last attack on the M4.

Some serious questions were also being asked, though. An MP had demanded an investigation into security at military
armouries. He wanted to know how Renner had managed to steal a high-velocity rifle so easily and how often such things happened. Two newspapers focused on the problem of disaffected and battle-scarred soldiers. They pointed out that Cole Renner was not the first soldier to go on a deadly rampage and that ex-servicemen formed the largest group in Britain’s prisons. The vast majority had been convicted of violent crimes.

Temple knew that Renner would be written about and analysed for years to come. He had earned himself the dubious distinction of being one of the country’s most notorious mass-murderers.

After a cereal breakfast, Temple set out for the office. He spent a couple of hours answering emails and pulling together his report. Then at lunchtime he went to Purbeck Road to check on the progress being made by the SOCOs.

People were still gathered behind the police cordons at either end of the street and the media were very much in evidence.

The technicians continued to pore over every inch of the house. In Renner’s bedroom they’d found a writing pad containing scribbled notes about each of the attack locations. There were references to bridges, escape routes and the distances from motorway embankments to places he could leave his car or motorbike.

‘There’s something I want to show you,’ said John Samuels, the officer in charge of the crime scene. He was a surly, muscular guy with jug-handle ears. He gestured for Temple to follow him out on to the upstairs landing.

‘Take a look at that,’ he said, pointing to a tiny dark stain on the grey carpet about half the size of a 5p coin. ‘We spotted it this morning. It’s blood and it matches Renner’s. There’s another one on the stairs that’s barely visible to the naked eye and another on the loft ladder. What I can’t figure out is how they got there. We know that Renner wouldn’t have been able to move after he shot himself. And the spray from the impact was confined to the living room.’

‘Is it fresh blood?’ Temple asked.

Samuels nodded. ‘No older than yesterday.’

‘So maybe he cut himself shaving and the blood dripped from his chin,’ Temple said.

‘I put that to Matherson. He says there are no cuts on Renner’s face or body.’

‘That’s strange,’ Temple said. ‘What about a nosebleed or something?’

‘Maybe, but it seems unlikely.’

‘So can you explain it?’

Samuels shrugged. ‘Well, it could be that someone was standing close to him when he shot himself. Whoever it was would have got blood on their clothes from the spray. Then some of the blood could have dripped on to the floor when that person went upstairs.’

‘But Renner was alone in the house at the time,’ Temple said. ‘Or at least that’s what we assumed. And the front and back doors were locked so there was no way out.’

‘That’s not strictly true,’ Samuels said.

Temple wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve probably been told already that this property shares loft space with the house next door. The one to the left. There’s no partition wall in between. It’s not uncommon in terraced houses built in the sixties and seventies.’

‘I think one of your people mentioned it yesterday when he was looking around up there. So what are you saying? That someone could have climbed into the loft and then got into the neighbouring house?’

‘It’s entirely possible. It wouldn’t have occurred to me if not for the blood. It made me think about the various ways it could have got there.’

‘Did you find any blood in the loft?’

‘None at all.’

‘What about the neighbour’s loft?’

‘I went through myself,’ Samuels said. ‘That house is empty. The old guy who lives there is in hospital, apparently. Anyway, there are no blood stains, but I tested his loft hatch and I was able to lift it straight out of the ceiling.’

‘So the loft could have provided a means of escape if there
was someone in the house with Renner when he took his life?’ Temple said. ‘Someone who didn’t want us to know he or she was here.’

‘That’s right. It’s just something for you to think about. There’s no evidence to support that idea except for the little mystery of the blood.’

The blood specks were an intriguing development and Temple did not know what to make of them. After all, Renner had been alone in the house when Megan Trent left to go shopping only a short time earlier. Was it conceivable that he had let someone in soon after? And could that person have been there when the raid began?

Temple felt a flare of unease. He didn’t like it. They would need to come up with an explanation for the blood. He did not want to be faced with any unanswered questions.

He was still mulling this over ten minutes later when Dr Matherson called him on his mobile. The pathologist said he was in the process of performing the post-mortem on Renner and something unusual had cropped up.

‘Can you drop by?’ Matherson asked, his tone ominous. ‘I’d rather not talk about it over the phone.’

As Temple drove to the mortuary, his heart started pounding like a great caged animal. He was concerned about the specks of blood. So concerned that he phoned DS Vaughan.

‘I want you to liaise with Samuels,’ he said. ‘See if you can figure it out between you. We need to find out how it got there.’

When he arrived at the mortuary he could feel his nerves start to rattle. He hated the place and had to stiffen his spine and take a deep breath before going inside.

After scrubbing up he donned a sterile suit and was shown into the autopsy room by one of Matherson’s assistants.

Renner’s naked body was face up on the dissecting table beneath an unforgiving white light. His chest had been opened and some of his organs had already been removed and put into trays.

Temple usually shied away from attending PMs. Years of working on murder cases had not desensitized him to the
horrors of watching a body being filleted. He turned up only when he thought it was really necessary or when he was asked to.

‘You’ll not be surprised that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the throat,’ Matherson said as he peered into Renner’s chest cavity. ‘The shell did massive damage to his arteries and shattered the back of his skull. He would have died instantly.’

‘Is that why I’m here?’ Temple said, cocking his brow. ‘So you can tell me that?’

Matherson stepped back from the table, put down his scalpel and removed his long surgical gloves. Then he walked over to another table and picked up a sheet of paper.

‘I took some routine blood and urine samples when he came in yesterday,’ Matherson said. ‘The lab did a rush job on several of them and this is the first toxicology report. It’s shown up something that I didn’t expect.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Flunitrazepam.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘It’s more commonly known as Rohypnol.’

Temple felt his forehead contract.

‘You mean the so called date-rape drug?’ he said.

Matherson nodded. ‘The very same. I’m sure you’re familiar with it.’

‘Of course. We’ve had a few cases down here where young women had their drinks spiked with it and then got raped.’

‘Then you know it’s a prescription-only sedative that’s about ten times stronger than Valium. A dose will knock someone out in minutes and a person can remain unconscious for up to twelve hours. When taken with alcohol it leads to disorientation and loss of memory.’

‘Why would Renner have it in his system?’

‘Well, it’s usually prescribed to people with chronic insomnia, but it’s meant to be used in small doses on a strictly short-term basis and not to be taken with alcohol. Renner here has got high levels of the drug in his system. And it seems he washed it down with a significant quantity of booze. It’s obvious from the state
of his liver that he’s a heavy drinker.’

Temple was puzzled. Rohypnol was a notorious drug that was first labelled the ‘date rape’ drug in the nineties when sex attackers started using it because of its high potency. All they had to do was drop a pill in a girl’s drink and wait for it to take effect before having their way with her. Afterwards the victim remembered nothing.

‘I’m confused as to why Renner would have self-administered this drug,’ Matherson said. ‘Normally it’s only given to hospital patients because it causes muscle relaxation, headaches, dizziness and slow psychomotor responses. These symptoms last for quite a while.’

‘I see what you mean,’ Temple said. ‘It would have made it difficult – if not impossible – for him to carry out the attacks.’

‘Precisely my point.’

‘But for all we know he might have decided to pop a pill or two yesterday – knowing he wasn’t about to launch another attack today. Maybe he just wanted to make sure he had a good night’s sleep.’

‘Or maybe someone else popped the pill into his food or drink,’ Matherson said. ‘It’s certainly worth looking into. I’m also surprised that this man is in such piss-poor condition for someone his age. He’s malnourished and severely underweight. It’s as though he suffered a sudden deterioration in his health over recent weeks.’

‘Could he have been ill?’

‘I won’t know that for sure until I’ve completed the postmortem and had all the toxicology reports back.’

‘So what else is unusual about him?’ Temple asked.

Matherson shrugged. ‘Nothing really. He’s perfectly normal in most other respects. An average Joe. Height five foot nine. Shoe size eight. Own hair and teeth. Plus he’s—’

‘Just a sec,’ Temple interrupted him. ‘What did you say about his shoe size?’

‘That it’s an eight. On the small side I suppose for someone of his stature.’

‘So you’ve measured his feet?’

‘Didn’t have to. I undressed the corpse when it got here. Saw his shoes. In fact they’re still here with the rest of his clothes. Someone from the lab was meant to pick them up last night. I had to remind them this morning.’

Temple’s heart started to gallop. He whipped out his phone and called the incident room. He asked for DS Vaughan and when Vaughan came on, he said, ‘I need you to check something out on the evidence log.’

‘I’m listening,’ Vaughan said.

‘SOCOs collected a couple of shoeprints from the scene of the first attack on the M27. They produced a plaster cast of one of them. Look it up on your computer and check the details.’

While Temple waited he asked Matherson to fetch the bag containing Renner’s clothes and shoes so that he could drop them off at the lab.

When Vaughan came back on the line, he said, ‘You’re right, guv. I’ve got the photo of the cast up on the screen. It includes all the measurements.’

‘So what size shoe left the imprint?’ Temple asked.

‘A size ten,’ Vaughan said.