DEAD AIR (Henry & Sparrow Book 2)
Page 10
‘What are OBs?’ asked Michaels.
‘Outside broadcasts,’ explained Bright. ‘We take the show out on the road sometimes and broadcast live from summer fairs, festivals, things like that.’
‘So… Finley brings in cakes,’ Kate went on, eyeing the tin beside the body.
‘He does,’ said Larkhill. ‘And they’re probably fine. He’s probably harmless, but…’
‘A stalker?’ said Kapoor.
It was fresh news for the CID briefing at seven - on a day of so much fresh news it had needed to be delayed from six.
‘Possibly,’ said Kate. ‘Finley Warner is his name. Twenty-three, ardent fan of the station. Maybe too ardent.’
‘At twenty-three?’ said DC Mulligan. ‘Well that marks him out as a weirdo for a start. He should be listening to Radio One on his phone and livin’ it large, not cosying up to bloody Neil Diamond by the family wireless.’
‘Sweet Caroline… played repeatedly by Fred and Rose West as they dismembered their victims,’ said Conrad Temple, nodding sagely. It took them all a moment to realise he was joking.
‘Is Warner on his way in?’ said Kapoor. He looked tired as he stood to one side of a display of photos which had recently been updated with images of Sheila Bartley alongside Dave Perry; a pair of gaffer-taped effigies on metal masts.
‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘The station has his address on file; he’s been on a lot of tours and attended every Radio Wessex carol concert. He lives with his mum and dad. They’re coming in with him. He was allegedly stalking Josh Carnegy, the overnight guy. Josh didn’t mention it in our first interview with him, but he’d stayed in the building so we went through this with him in a second interview. He says Finley Warner has waited for him outside the security gate three times in the past month - at around 1.10am, when Josh gets out after his overnight show.’
‘And what has he done?’ asked Kapoor.
Michael’s consulted his notebook. ‘He brought a tin of macaroons on the first occasion, then a tin of, umm, shortbread. And, just last week, in the early hours of Saturday morning, a jumper. With a photo of himself and Josh Carnegy screen-printed onto a cotton patch and stitched onto it.’
‘Anything else?’ asked Kapoor, with a small shake of the head.
‘Um… well he might have left some flapjacks by the back gate last night,’ said Michaels. ‘Josh Carnegy found a tin there, with his publicity postcard taped to it.’
‘Are all these gifts available for forensics?’ asked Kapoor.
‘Probably not.’ Michaels replied. ‘Josh says he threw them all away - including last night’s offering - in a bin outside the station, on his way home. We checked and there are daily council refuse collections, first thing,’ said Michaels. ‘But other tins might be knocking around the station. The guy’s a serial baker and - what did they call him?’ He glanced at Kate.
‘Jock botherer,’ she supplied. ‘So… we’re waiting on forensics for the tin of cakes found next to Sheila. Death says the mug of cocoa had Rohypnol in it. So, maybe that’s the way she was easily persuaded up onto the roof and then killed without any struggle…’
‘So… do we think this jock botherer somehow made it into the station and persuaded Sheila Bartley up onto the roof without getting noticed?’ asked Kapoor. ‘Perhaps drugging her first… or maybe once she was up there? And then suffocated her? All without getting noticed?’
‘The building was full of people,’ said Kate, thinking aloud. ‘All staff and freelancers were in to speak to us and a lot of them just hung around, talking about the murder. Reception was chock-a-block with hysterical Radio Wessex fans, queuing to sign a book of condolence; other press were lurking about too. It was mayhem. So if he was going to pull off another murder, it might have been quite a good time to try it.’
‘Security camera footage?’
‘We’re going through it now, guv,’ said Mulligan. ‘Although there aren’t many cameras. I mean, you’d think there would be in a place like that, but they’re only in reception and on the front and back entrances. One in the newsroom too, but it doesn’t cover more than half the floorspace.’
‘And the access to the roof?’ Kapoor went on. ‘How easy?’
‘The door to the stairwell up to it needs a key,’ said Michaels. ‘The chief engineer has one on his key ring and another on a hook in a cupboard - it’s still there. Another engineer has a key too; he’s been away in Italy all week.’
Kapoor sat down on a desk, sagging. Kate didn’t blame him; she was pretty exhausted too. It had taken a lot of plasticine mollusc-moulding to make herself tired enough to sleep the previous night and she guessed she hadn’t got more than four hours in total. She would love to go home and crawl into her bed right now, but she guessed she was going to have to speak to this Finley Warner first. It made her uneasy just thinking about it. A twenty-three-year-old fixated on a radio station pitched at a fifty-plus audience was already ringing alarm bells; not because he was likely to be a serial killer but because he was likely to be a simple soul who could easily be mistaken for a serial killer. She had met the type before. Police had their own share of groupies; usually kids with obsessive tendencies. Kids of all ages.
Obsessions could, of course, drive you to do bad things. To make stupid decisions.
All of a sudden Lucas Henry was back in her mind.
16
Sid should have been back in his sock. Lucas knew he should. And yet here he was, hanging around again, nestled in under his crew neck jumper.
‘Hello stranger,’ said Mariam, getting up as he made his way to her at their usual table in the Pheasant Inn. She kissed him on both cheeks, her spicy perfume gentle on his senses. In her fifties, with long dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, she still looked fantastic, but although many of his old university mates had madly fancied her a few years back when she’d been running one of the art degree courses, Lucas had always had a different kind of appreciation for Mariam.
His mother was somewhat absent in his life; had been for most of it one way or another. She lived in Spain with her new husband these days but even when they had lived in the same house she had been more interested in reaching the bottom of a bottle than connecting with her only child. So he guessed he must have been seeking a mother figure when he went to university… and maybe Mariam had been after a son figure. All he knew was that she had been caring and inspiring and had not even judged him when he dropped out and threw his degree away in the second year.
Throughout his wandering across Europe over the next decade they had stayed in touch, and when he’d returned to Wiltshire earlier that year, she was the first person he had sought. It had worked out pretty well for them both; the exhibition of abstract paintings she had encouraged from him had sold out - and handsomely.
‘You’ve got that look again,’ said Mariam, as they took their seat near the large open fire.
‘Please don’t break into a Simply Red song,’ said Lucas. ‘I will have to kill you.’
‘It would be a kindness,’ conceded Mariam, with an understanding nod. ‘But no - I mean it. You’re wearing that distracted look; something is buzzing around your mind again. And probably around your neck too, if I know Sid.’
Lucas ran his hands through his straggly dark hair and sighed heavily. ‘I think I’ve just complicated my life a bit more.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, eyeing him over her glass of Prosecco. ‘What have you done?’
‘You know this BBC guy they’ve just found dead?’
‘Everyone in Salisbury knows,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me… you killed him.’
‘No. But I found him.’
‘You’re joking!’ She put down the glass and peered at him incredulously.
‘Wish I was.’
‘And when you say found him, I’m assuming you didn’t just stumble blindly upon the body?'
‘Not exactly.’ He related the unhappy events of the last two days, concluding with the visit from Chief Superintendent Kapoor.
‘Hmmm,’ said Lucas, taking a swig from the Peroni bottle, ignoring the tumbler that came with it.
‘It’s not that, though, is it?’ she intuited. ‘You’ve found a body and tangled with the top copper in Salisbury but it’s actually all about the girl, isn’t it? You’re in some kind of state about Kate.’
‘You’re very poetic this evening,’ he observed.
‘Stop dodging and fudging,’ she said. ‘This old bird ain’t budging.’
‘Really, I’m going to have to-’
‘Kill me? Yes. Sorry. But you know what I’m saying. You’ve been hung up about Kate Sparrow for weeks… months. And you still haven’t spoken to her, have you?’
‘I told her we should talk, when she phoned me at the bungalow,’ he said. ‘She agreed.’
‘So… set something up. Maybe bring her here and buy her dinner. You and she have got to have this thing out.’
‘I don’t even know, exactly, what this thing is,’ he said, limply.
‘Well, let me tell you while you eat your dinner,’ she said. ‘You were best friends with Zoe Taylor and Mabel Johanssen. You found Zoe’s body in that quarry but you never found Mabel’s. You were suspected of murdering them both. You never got charged, because you didn’t do it, of course… but mud sticks and people can carry suspicion for a lifetime. Or until the real killer is found. So now that you’ve realised she knows who you are, you’re wondering if Kate suspects you - even though you saved her life. How am I doing so far?’
He had a mouthful of cod and batter so he just nodded and rolled his eyes.
‘And this reticence about speaking to you after everything that happened in September… you think it might be because she does suspect you. Even though, as I might point out again, you saved her life. And that other woman’s. And god knows how many others if that killer had gone on with her sick art project.’
‘Alright, alright,’ he said, reaching for more salt and vinegar. ‘Yes.’
‘Not alright. You meet her again at the radio station, have a little Siddy freak out down inside your shirt, and the next thing you know, you’ve found a body for her.’
He blinked and put down his knife and fork. ‘Are you suggesting I’m bringing her corpses like some kind of courtship offering?’
‘That does sound more like a cat,’ she acknowledged, with a rueful shrug. ‘OK. Forget it. I’m not a psychologist.’
‘Because I can think of better ways,’ he said.
‘So why don’t you? Ask her out to dinner, I mean?’
‘Because it’s all messed up,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The little sister of my… I mean, she was ten when I knew her before. Just a kid.’
‘And now she’s a grown woman,’ said Mariam. ‘What’s the problem? Is it that you see Mabel in her and that haunts you?’
He paused and considered. ‘Actually, no. They don’t look that alike, apart from the blonde hair. And more than that, their energy patterns are worlds apart. Kate’s nothing like Mabel. It’s just all the history, that’s all. It would be like sowing seeds in poisoned soil.’
‘So tell me,’ said Mariam, digging into her mushroom risotto. ‘I’ve never asked you this before and you don’t have to answer… but what do you think happened down in that quarry?’
He rubbed his face, thinking. ‘I should know,’ he said. ‘But I don’t. Whenever I try to find the truth, it’s just a blur. People say that dowsing for people too close to you, when it’s really important, just doesn’t work so well. You can’t be a clean conduit for the energy to flow through - you’re all twisted up with fear and love and you just scatter the frequencies.’
‘So, forget the dowsing. What does your rational brain tell you?’
‘That they were in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he said. ‘Some psychopath came through and found them and… killed them. But I don’t think Mabel died in the quarry. I think she was taken somewhere else, far away. I didn’t get any sense of her anywhere after that day.’
‘Did you try? After they found Zoe?’
‘Did I try?’ Lucas gave a dry, humourless chuckle. ‘Mariam, I’ve never stopped trying. I have tried for years. When I went travelling it wasn’t just because I was running away from Wiltshire.’
‘You were searching the continent for her?’ Mariam took another sip of wine, her brows drawn down. ‘Bloody hell, Lucas, I never realised, I thought you were finding yourself!’
‘Well, there was a bit of that too,’ he acknowledged.
‘Tell Kate,’ she said. ‘Fix up to see her and just tell her what you’ve told me. What have you got to lose?’
Lucas didn’t say anything. There was always something to lose.
‘I need a pee,’ he said, and excused himself for a few minutes. He didn’t actually, but he suddenly felt pinned and wriggling under Mariam’s line of interrogation and he wanted it to stop. In the gents he stared at his reflection and tried to make sense of it. He had the face of a normal man; an innocent man.
But there was guilt in his eyes.
17
‘I’m not a stalker!’
Finley Warner looked very affronted; baffled even. He glanced around the interview room as if he couldn’t understand why he was in it.
‘I’m just a fan,’ he went on, his smooth face awash with hurt. ‘I take them cakes. They like cakes. That’s why I take them in.’
‘But you were waiting outside the back gate in the dark for one of them… three times,’ said Kate. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit stalkery, Finley?’
Finley folded his arms across his burgundy jumper and sat up a little straighter. ‘My mother has always said the personal touch is important. How can I give the personal touch when I never get to meet Josh? He hardly ever comes on the OBs and he’s never there in the daytime for the studio tours. So how else was I going to meet him? I had to catch him at the end of his shift.’
‘By waiting at the gate in the dark?’ said Michaels, raising an eyebrow. ‘Would you like it if someone waited outside your house in the dark and suddenly jumped out and said hi?’
‘But it’s not his house,’ said Finley. ‘I wouldn’t go round his house. That would be rude!’
‘How often would you say you visit BBC Radio Wessex, on average?’ asked Kate.
‘Oh - two or three times a week, probably,’ he said. ‘I’m like part of the family; that’s what Moira on reception says. She’s nice. I like Moira.’
‘Do you go into the building, beyond reception, at any time?’ Kate pressed.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I’m on the Listener’s Board. We get to go on tours around the station every three or four months. I like the tech, you know. The old Studer B67s - the reel-to-reel machines they used for editing packages back in the old days - they’re great. Digital editing is quicker and more precise but there’s much more soul about a reel of iron oxide ribbon and a razor blade and splicing tape. I had a go at it. I changed British Broadcasting Corporation to British Broadcorping Casteration.’ He grinned proudly.
‘So, you know your tech,’ said Kate, impressed. ‘Have you ever tried to get a job at the BBC?’
‘I might one day,’ he said. ‘But for now my mum needs me to help at home. I’d like to drive the old radio car,’ he went on. ‘It’s got a retractable twenty-five-foot mast. It goes up with hydraulics. The new VERV ones are more efficient but the old one… it’s got much more soul. I sat in it and put up the mast once.’
‘Finley, how well did you know Dave Perry?’ asked Kate.
Finley’s face fell. He looked at his hands. ‘It’s awful
what happened to him,’ he said.
‘What happened to him?’ asked Kate.
‘He got asphyixiated,’ said Finley. ‘On the Shrewton mast.’
Kate and Michaels exchanged glances. There was detail here.
‘Well remembered,’ said Kate. ‘Do you know anything else about it?’
‘It’s a relay transmitter and serves about 800 homes,’ he said. ‘Main transmitters can’t reach all areas, especially those blocked by land masses, trees and buildings, so relay transmitters receive signals and relay them on. Many of them are increasingly defunct now that the BBC and other broadcasters are using WiFi and satellite technology but they are kept in place as backup, for when the satellites fail.’
Kate suppressed a smile. ‘I meant… about the murder of Dave Perry.’
‘It’s awful, what happened to him,’ repeated Finley, his eyes down again.
‘Do you know anything about what happened to him?’ asked Michaels. Kate was pleased to hear the care he was taking with his tone. She really didn’t need him to start playing Bad Cop with someone like Finley.
‘Only what I heard on the radio,’ said Finley. ‘He was asphyxiated. They found him on the Shrewton mast. It’s a relay mast.’
‘How many times did you meet Dave?’ said Kate. ‘Did you like him?’
Finley looked around the room as if seeking clues or prompts. Eventually he said: ‘I met him six times. Dave didn’t like me.’
‘What makes you say that?’ said Kate.
‘I used to do the Mystery Voice thing every day but Dave told them I couldn’t keep doing it. I had to let other people take a turn.’
‘What did you think about that?’
‘Mum said he was just trying to be fair, because I kept getting it right and other people had to have a chance too,’ said Finley. ‘But he didn’t like me. I heard what he said when he was off air but I was still connected and he didn’t know. He said I should get a life. He said I was a jock botherer.’ He glanced up at them and his brow, under a fine brown fringe, settled into a crease. ‘That means someone who annoys the presenters.’