by Carol Wyer
The office, warmed by the sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, had heated up to uncomfortable levels. ‘Can’t we turn off the sodding heating?’ Murray grumbled, wiping his forehead.
‘The thermostat’s stuck,’ Ian replied.
‘I’m going to melt at this rate.’
‘Male menopause,’ whispered Lucy, who dodged to miss the notepad Murray hurled at her.
Mike and Natalie were next to her desk, heads bent over a specimen jar containing white crystals. She thanked him and he left her to brief her team.
‘Listen up, people. We’ve got some new information.’ She lifted up the jar. ‘These are oxalic acid crystals, readily available in DIY stores and online. As you’re aware, the forensic team were examining Lennox’s room last night. They discovered traces of a white substance, which has now been identified as oxalic acid, on a pair of rubber gloves in a box at the bottom of his wardrobe. They are now examining the entire house, starting with the communal areas. The university has been notified and Ryan Hausmann has been moved to a flat on campus for the time being while Forensics conduct a thorough search. Obviously, we’ll talk to Lennox immediately but we might need to establish where the substance came from. The most obvious place is the chemistry laboratory. Ian, can you check, please? Lucy, speak to the accountancy firm working at 74 Eastview Avenue. I want to know if Hattie’s car was stationed in their car park on Saturday afternoon, any time after 4.25 p.m. and before 10 p.m. That means find out if there are any surveillance cameras on the property or overlooking the car park, and do a house-to-house in the area. I’d like you to talk to those people whose houses overlook that car park. Murray, you can help me persuade Lennox to open up. Make sure his lawyer, Carolyn Pickerton, gets here pronto. I’m not waiting around for her. If she can’t make it, grab hold of the station lawyer. I want answers.’
The uncomfortable temperature forgotten, the team burst into action like a well-rehearsed dance routine, each member breaking away to perform their own task.
Carolyn happened to already be at HQ, waiting for charges to be pressed against Lennox, and was installed in an interview room. Natalie decided to share the latest discovery with her in the hope she might be able to get a confession from Lennox rather than them sitting through a lengthy interview.
The lawyer, in a tight grey skirt, white blouse and blood-red tie, looked like she ought to be dispensing financial advice or on a stock exchange trading floor. Her briefcase was open on the desk, and as she sorted through paperwork, she spoke aloud, her Bluetooth in her ear. ‘Tell them we aren’t willing to deal. They know what we want and we’re prepared to sit it out. No. That’s my final response. They want to play hardball, so can we. Get back to me when they come around to our way of thinking.’ She ended the call and stood to shake Natalie’s hand.
‘Can I ask you, are you Jocelyn Walsh’s lawyer?’
‘That’s correct. I’m the family lawyer.’
‘Is Jocelyn coming back to the UK?’
‘I’m keeping her in the loop regarding Lennox. She’ll return if it’s necessary. As soon as he’s charged, I’ll be requesting bail.’
Natalie understood. Lennox’s mother would ensure her son was kept out of prison. She wasn’t as uncaring as Lennox had led them to believe.
Carolyn looked up briefly. ‘I’ve got a busy schedule today. I hope this won’t take long.’
‘It might take longer than you thought. We’ve uncovered new evidence that points to his involvement in a second murder.’
Carolyn’s poker face didn’t register any surprise at the revelation. ‘Can I speak to him about it before you interview him? It might speed things up a bit.’
‘We found oxalic acid on a pair of rubber gloves in his wardrobe. One of the victims was poisoned with oxalic acid.’
‘Okay! I’ll see what he has to say about that.’
Natalie headed back upstairs to allow Carolyn time with Lennox and hoped she’d be able to get him to confess.
In the office, Ian had been busy on the phone. ‘Lennox didn’t get any oxalic acid from the chemistry laboratory, or use it in experiments.’
‘Bugger!’
‘Ah, but…’ said Ian, with a half-smile playing on his lips, ‘I spoke to a lab technician, Jason Wight, who admitted he signed out a small quantity of oxalic acid to use for a rust patch on his car. He was working on it in the car park in front of the science department when Lennox pulled up and expressed interest. Apparently, his Saab was also rusting and he asked if he could obtain a small amount of oxalic acid to work on it. Jason had some left over and he gave it to Lennox.’
‘When was this?’
‘Monday, November the first.’
‘Good work, Ian.’
‘Yeah, good work, mate,’ Murray repeated.
Ian grinned. ‘You taking the piss?’
‘No. I mean it. It saves me having to flatten the little turd when we interview him next to get the answers out of him.’
‘Whoa, Rocky! Watch those fists of yours. They’re lethal weapons. Not sure about the rest of you though,’ said Ian.
‘Fuck you. Last time I compliment you!’ Murray shouted after him as Ian disappeared with a wave.
‘Where’s he going?’ asked Natalie.
‘Examine some CCTV footage. The accountancy firm has a camera that overlooks the car park.’
‘That’s good. I hope he finds Hattie’s car on it. I can’t think where else it would have been between 4.25 p.m. and 10 p.m. If we’re really lucky, we might even see who drove it away.’ She turned at a light tap. An officer stood in the doorway.
‘I’ve been asked to let you know Lennox Walsh and his lawyer are ready for you, ma’am.’
‘Thank you.’
Murray was on his feet in an instant. Natalie joined him. It was time to reel in Lennox.
The lilac bruises under his eyes indicated Lennox had slept badly. His head was lowered and he picked at the nail bed on his right thumb, already red raw. Carolyn Pickerton did the talking.
‘My client is willing to assist you. We’d like you to take this cooperation into account of any charges you are considering levelling at him and remind you that whilst he admitted to using Gemma Barnes’s photograph to create a dating profile, he did not steal her identity. My client did not attack Gemma nor was he directly or indirectly responsible for her subsequent death, and I shall strongly contest any charges that suggest he was. Lennox has now informed me that a third party was involved and he wishes to retract his initial confession.’
Once Carolyn had finished, Natalie looked across at Lennox. ‘What do you have to tell us, Lennox?’
He dropped his hands onto his lap and wet his lips. ‘I didn’t tell you the truth yesterday. I didn’t want to say anything bad about her because she’s dead but I didn’t come up with the plan to catfish. Fran thought up the whole idea. She and I got drunk together one night and were sympathising with each other about having no money. I told her about my debts and how my mum wouldn’t help me get out of the crap, and she understood because she got no help from her mother either – only regular grief. Then we got on to Gemma and Sasha. Fran had issues with Gemma. She didn’t hide the fact that she didn’t get on with her, but that night she laid into her, said she was “up herself” and went on about the way Gemma and Sasha behaved together. She thought it was insane that they should be hanging out all the time like mates or sisters. The drunker she got, the more she ranted about Gemma, and then she had this wacky idea of how to make some money. She thought it would be funny to use Gemma’s picture to try and catfish a few guys. I didn’t take it seriously. It was purely drunk-talk so I rolled with it. We drank some more and ended up in bed together. The next morning, when I woke up, Fran was at my desk on my laptop. She’d already set up the dating profile and screenshotted a photograph from Instagram. I remember her laughing and saying if a photo of Gemma couldn’t attract blokes, then there was no hope for her.’ He stared ahead blankly for a few seconds
before continuing.
‘For me, it was all about the money. It was something else for Fran. She was jealous of both Gemma and Sasha. She never admitted it but it was obvious to me. I thought I’d see what happened. Where was the harm in making a few pounds? Fran got a real buzz when we got a match. Scott was our first match. She answered his message, got a few kicks out of egging him on. It was around that time she suggested I set up the false email and PayPal account, in case he was willing to donate money to us. That’s what she called it, a “donation” to the “poor student fund”. He didn’t bite but we had another match by then and she tried again. Finally, she hooked Henry. He fell for it all and sent the money. It was dead easy to block him after that and we thought we’d got away with it. Neither of us could have guessed what would happen to Gemma. If we had, we’d never have done it.’
‘Why didn’t you split the money fifty-fifty?’
‘We were going to. Fran was going to set up a building society account this week, one her mum knew nothing about, so she and Rhiannon could look to rent a place together after uni, and I was going to transfer the money into it. If you look at my bank account, you’ll see I only spent some of what we took. The rest was for Fran. After I found out she was killed, I panicked. I didn’t want her money, and I withdrew as much as I could from my account – I really wanted to take out £3,000 but the bank wouldn’t let me – and I put it in her room.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this when we spoke to you soon after Gemma’s death?’
‘Hand on heart, I wanted to, but Fran made me promise to say nothing. I was scared about going to prison, I listened to her.’ His voice juddered and lurched. ‘It was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I should have come clean immediately and then maybe Fran would still be alive.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Did Lennox mean he thought somebody they’d tried to scam had killed her?
His brow knitted together. ‘She’d have been here in custody, and nobody could have harmed her.’
‘To summarise, you are telling me that Fran Ditton came up with the entire plan to catfish for money, using Gemma’s photographs to entice men?’ Natalie said.
‘That’s what happened and I went along with it even though I knew it was wrong. Fran could be very persuasive.’
‘Did she threaten you?’
He worried his thumbnail for a brief moment and gave an embarrassed, ‘Yes.’
Murray gawked at the boy. ‘You were afraid of Fran?’
‘Not of Fran! Of her hard-nut friends. She knew some pretty nasty characters who’d think nothing of knifing me. She warned me that if I pointed the finger of blame at her, she’d make sure they found me and gave me payback.’
Murray scoffed. ‘You believed all that bull?’
‘It wasn’t bull. She was a member of a proper street gang. They were heavily into violence.’
‘She ran with a crowd of pre-teens when she was a kid. They got into some trouble – shoplifted, graffitied walls and got into a few scuffles – but she left and moved in with her grandmother and stayed out of trouble after that. Didn’t it cross your mind that she wouldn’t be likely to have sat A-levels if she was in a street gang?’
Lennox shook his head like a dog worrying a lead. ‘That’s not true. She was a street gang member. She told me about it and about her time in a remand centre for GBH.’
‘She never spent any time in a remand centre. She was winding you up,’ said Murray.
Lennox’s voice lifted in indignation. ‘No! She wouldn’t have done that. Why did she fuck me about like that? I believed her!’
Natalie spoke to him again. ‘What happened to Fran?’
‘Honestly, I don’t know.’
‘Can you explain why we found oxalic acid dust on a pair of rubber gloves in your room?’
‘I used the acid for Sabina – my car. I got it from one of the lab technicians, Jason Wight. He’d been removing some rust on his car with it and had some left over. Sabina had a few patches that needed attention and I couldn’t afford to take her into a garage to get them seen to, so I took it and worked on them myself. If you examine the car, you’ll see where I used it.’
‘Fran was poisoned with oxalic acid.’
‘I didn’t give it to her. I definitely didn’t give her any.’
‘Did you have any crystals left over?’
He wetted his lips again. ‘There were a few teaspoons. I kept them to use at a later date.’
‘Where did you put it?’
‘On the top shelf in the cupboard under the stairs, in a box with other stuff I use on my car.’
‘Who had access to it?’
‘I guess anyone in the house.’
‘Do you know what happened to Hattie?’
‘No. I didn’t clap eyes on her again after Friday night when you visited us and told us about Gemma.’
Carolyn tapped her paperwork together on the desk, a sharp rat-a-tat that signalled the end of the interview. ‘My client accepts he was an accessory to fraud but denies any involvement in the deaths of Gemma Barnes, Fran Ditton or Hattie Caldwell. Unless you have any further questions or evidence to prove contrary, I suggest we wind this up. I have another meeting to attend.’
Murray stretched his legs out as far as he could, the entire width of the desk, and placed his hands behind his head. ‘Where do we go from here?’
Natalie stood by the door, pondering that very question. Lennox’s admission that Fran was behind the scheme made sense, but it didn’t explain how she’d died or what had happened to Hattie.
‘I suppose we could reconsider our earlier theory that Fran killed Hattie because she found out about the scam, and then killed herself.’
Natalie dismissed the idea. ‘Why go to a doorway in a semi-abandoned street to do that, and what did she use drink from – a glass, a bottle, a cup? And, if that were the case, why couldn’t Forensics find it? No, I think she swallowed that poison somewhere else and her body was moved. What we need is hard evidence, and we’ll find it. Forensics are still at the house. Make sure they also examine Lennox’s car.’
‘To check he removed rust patches with oxalic acid?’
She opened the door. ‘No, for evidence Fran was inside his vehicle. He might have transported her to the doorway.’
Murray sprang to his feet, face set. ‘You know that little bastard shouldn’t get away with what he did.’
‘I know he shouldn’t, but he has a top lawyer defending him, and if she can prove Fran was behind the whole scam, he’ll get off.’
‘Pin the blame on the dead girl because she can’t deny it. I think he’s covering his arse. He’s involved deeper than he says he is.’
‘We’ve got to find something that proves his guilt and that his lawyer can’t dispute. I ran some background checks on her, and Carolyn Pickerton is one of the best. Jocelyn Walsh isn’t going to let her boy go to jail.’
Murray blew out his cheeks as he pounded up the stairs behind her. ‘Money can buy you anything, including freedom.’
‘Not if we can find evidence to prove he is more involved in all of this than he admits.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Wednesday, 21 November – Late Morning
Natalie hadn’t been back in the office five minutes before she got a call from Ian at the accountancy firm that sent her racing to Eastview Avenue.
The house, identical to others on the same side of the street, differed to those opposite, where the students lived, by having a wide driveway. She understood how they’d not found it sooner. It was only once she turned into the approach and followed a blue arrow to the rear of the building that the car park, a tarmac area large enough for ten cars, became visible.
Natalie entered via the rear entrance next to which was a discreet bronze plaque with the names of the accountants who worked there. She rang the button marked reception and the door opened with a click.
She found herself in a pale grey reception area. A piercing whistle attracted her immediate
attention. The onscreen noise had come from a dog trainer attempting to control a disobedient terrier that chased after some ducks that raced about quacking, wings flapping wildly to the accompaniment of raucous canned laughter. The television was snapped off. Natalie faced the receptionist, who laid down the remote control.
‘You must be DI Ward. Your colleague’s in the room on the right, past the seating area. It’s marked private. Can I get you anything?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Natalie replied, sliding between the dark green chairs, which reminded her of the hospital waiting room, and the coffee table, overrun with dog-eared magazines.
Ian was staring up at the black-and-white monitor, chin resting on the flats of his hands. He sat up as soon as Natalie spoke.
‘What have we got?’ said Natalie, without any preamble. She glanced at the notes Ian had made of times and movements. The cursor hovered on the timestamp in the left-hand corner of the screen.
‘Hattie’s car arrives in the car park at eleven thirty-six on Saturday morning. It doesn’t move until between ten and two minutes past ten that same night.’
‘So it was there, pretty much all afternoon.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Fran said she’d spoken to her in the kitchen late morning. It seems that was right but Hattie didn’t go out, not even after she rang me to arrange to meet at Chancer’s Bar, well, not in her car.’
‘It would appear not.’
‘Remind me, what time did the vehicle arrive at the station?’
‘Ten seventeen that night.’
‘How long would it take to get from Eastview Avenue to the station?’
‘About a quarter of an hour.’
‘Hattie can’t have driven it that night. If her broken watch was any indicator, she died at seven fifty. She was already dead by the time the car left.’
‘I’ve gone over and over this footage but there’s nothing to indicate who actually drove her car. The camera shifts position every two minutes. It picked the car up at nine o’clock, but when it next moved back into that position, the car was gone.’