“Any idea what it’s all about, Keith?”
“No, not really. I’ve a couple of theories swimming about in my head but nothing too solid.”
“Go on, I’d like to hear them.”
“Well, there are still a few anomalies in each version. First, I was thinking that this might be a gang-land issue, a protection racket. Pay us a grand a week or we’ll put your shop out of action.”
“Could be a strong theory.”
“Yes, it ticks a few boxes. The only trouble is, looking at the CCTV footage of the blokes walking away… they’re not gangsters, are they? They walk more like geriatrics.”
“To be fair Keith, we don’t know that’s them. They could well be eliminated as soon as the footage is made public.”
“Yes, I get that. But I doubt it somehow. Why would four blokes be walking up the middle of the road at one a.m. just after a major fire has been started around the corner?”
“I see what you’re saying, but we don’t know where they came from, do we? It could be that they’d had a lock-in at the Working Men’s Club. That would also explain the laboured walking.”
“Doesn’t explain the dark clothing and their hoods up.”
“No… no, that’s a good point.”
“So, my theory about gangsters running a protection racket on the bookies still has a few missing links.”
“What was your other theory? You said you had a couple.”
“Yes, the other idea I had is just as tricky to nail down. I was thinking that there might be a group of disgruntled gamblers who have decided to take their frustrations out on the betting shops where they’ve lost all their money.”
“Wow. I like the sound of that idea.”
“Yes, well, it would explain the general view that the four people on the CCTV aren’t looking very nimble.”
“I like this… this is a good theory mate.”
“Yes, but there are a number of flaws with it. Firstly, the geography of the shops that have been targeted. They are so random, they sort of circle the Greater Manchester map. Bolton, Middleton, Denton, Stockport and Tameside. If this was a group of angry gamblers, why would they target bookies in such random places?”
“Don’t know.”
“Plus, each shop belongs to a different chain.”
“Good point, so we can rule out a vendetta against a certain brand of bookmakers.”
“Precisely. So as I say, these theories present more questions than answers at the minute.”
“Besides, going back to the geography… its not as though there’s a shortage of betting shops in the area.” Miller took his phone out of his pocket and opened the internet browser. He did a quick search. “Here we go… how many bookies do you think there are in Greater Manchester?”
“Fifty? Sixty?” said Saunders, not sounding very confident.
“Over three hundred!”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what it says here…”
“Bloody hell. How many bakers?”
Miller searched again. It only took a few seconds to get the answer. “One hundred and eighty-two.”
“Holy macaroni! So there are almost twice as many bookies as bakers?”
“That’s what Google reckon.”
“Yeah, actually, thinking about it. How many betting shops are there in the average town? Five, six…”
“And only one Greggs!”
“This makes me think that the second theory is even more unlikely. If these attacks are being carried out by bitter gamblers, they wouldn’t have to go as far as Bolton to find a bookies to trash, or burn down.”
“Well Keith, I still like it. I think you might be on to something there, this could form a significant line of enquiry. We need to look at the locations of the shops that have been targeted and see if we can work out why that particular shop was chosen. Was it because it was remote, isolated, away from prying eyes, handy for an escape, far away from CCTV? I think we should start building a picture up of each location and see if there’s a common theme.”
“Well, last night’s was certainly in a remote location. There are other betting shops in Denton, there are four up at Crown Point, but there’s lots of CCTV and traffic all night running through the town centre.” Saunders indicated and pulled the car off the motorway as Miller’s phone rang.
“It’s Dixon. Hello, Sir.”
“Hi Andy, its Dixon.”
Miller smiled at the familiar greeting and wondered if his boss knew how stupid he sounded introducing himself like this in the digital age when his name pops up on the phone screen.
“Where are you?”
“Just coming into town, about five minutes away. Why, what’s come up?”
“Oh, I’ve just had clearance from the family liaison officers. It’s okay to speak to the press now.”
“Oh, that’s good news.”
“Yes. So, I’ll book the media-centre for… shall we say five?”
“Yes, that sounds okay Sir. Thanks.”
Miller hung up and let out a heavy sigh. He hated press conferences.
Chapter Ten
DCS Dixon’s instruction to the Divisional Inspector at Salford Division had yielded an amazing result. The amount of CCTV footage which was being delivered to the SCIU from Salford’s police officers, detectives and PCSO’s was incredible considering the request had only been made a few hours earlier.
DS Rudovsky had built up a list of business and domestic addresses around the route of Graham Hartley’s regular run and had then sent the list to Dixon. It was almost as though the Salford Inspector had asked all of his available officers to drop everything and grab the footage as a top priority. It certainly demonstrated the power of a senior rank. If Rudovsky had asked for this favour alone, she was confident that it would probably take several weeks to accumulate this much footage, if she ever received any at all.
Rudovsky’s desk was cluttered with envelopes and evidence bags which contained USB memory sticks. Each parcel included the dates and times of the CCTV footage downloaded, along with the address of the source. She started sorting the USBs into piles, starting with the addresses closest to Hartley’s house on Francis Street in Monton. The next pile of USBs, the biggest pile, was made up of footage from addresses along the main Monton Road, the thoroughfare between Swinton and Eccles which made up the hub of the village.
Monton has witnessed a huge amount of regeneration over the past fifteen to twenty years. In that time it has seen a very ordinary, very northern road of charity shops, takeaways and pubs transform into a popular social hot-spot filled with restaurants, cafes and wine bars with outdoor dining, which stretches all along both sides of the road for half a mile. It’s not quite Paris, but Monton has managed to pull-off a remarkable make-over since the turn of the millennium and has become a very trendy place to be seen. The district attracts lots of Premier League footballers, celebrated musicians as well as well-known actors and TV presenters from the nearby Media-City development a mile or so away.
It was thanks to this make-over and modernisation that the SCIU team now had hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from all along Monton Road to be examined, looking for anybody who might be following or spying on Graham Hartley each night when he set off on his 7pm jog.
The mood was a peculiar mix of excitement and dread. This operation had the potential to confirm that Hartley was attacked completely at random, or to prove Chapman’s theory, that the attacker will be seen on CCTV working out his logistics for battering the jogger to death with a golf club in the lonely darkness of an isolated path behind a housing estate.
“Right everybody, look at the state of this,” said Rudovsky, pointing at the Monton Road pile of envelopes. “I have never seen so much evidence which has overwhelmed me so much that I am having dark thoughts about throwing myself onto the motorway.”
“How have you got all that so quickly?” asked Chapman, looking at his watch. It was almost five, knocking off time.
“I have no idea. Dixon asked the Inspector at Salford to co-ordinate it.”
“Jesus. That Inspector must have a point to prove!” said Kenyon, walking across to have a better look at the huge pile on Rudovsky’s desk.
“He wants a promotion!” said Chapman.
“So, just a heads up, tomorrow you will need your specs and your Optrex eye-drops as we’re all going to be staring our computer screens out all day.”
Chapman wandered across to the desk and looked at how Rudovsky had laid the piles out. The first pile, which contained just two envelopes was labelled “Francis Street.”
“Sarge, is it okay if I get cracking now?” asked Chapman. Rudovsky’s initial thought was that DC Chapman was taking the piss, after all, it was literally minutes before home time. But she quickly realised from his expression that he was being deadly serious.
“Yes, Bill, course. If you want?”
“Thanks. I’ll start with Francis Street, if that’s okay?”
“Sure. Fill your boots.” Rudovsky handed the two packages across to Chapman and smiled widely.
“So, we’re checking for Hartley leaving the house and then creating a log of any people or vehicles that he passes?”
“Yes. And any other activity that might look odd, like people sat in cars or loitering around bus stops. If anybody is waiting at a bus stop when Graham runs past, we might want to speed it up and check that they actually catch the bus when it arrives, that kind of shit.”
All of the SCIU officers were familiar with CCTV investigations, so Rudovsky didn’t have to lay it on too thick, she knew that they had enough experience to carry out a thorough search through the footage without too much supervision.
“Right, well, I’ll make a start. I’ll start on Francis Street on the night of the attack and work backwards one day at a time.”
“Brilliant. Thanks Bill.”
There was a slight sense of mirth in the office. The other detectives, Kenyon, Grant and Worthington glanced at one another, trying not to laugh. This enthusiasm, particularly volunteering for overtime, was most uncharacteristic of Bill Chapman. Rudovsky was clearly impressed by this new attitude.
“Right, well, sorry but I’m going home. I’ve got to pick the kids up from after-school club.” DC Mike Worthington was the first to draw his line in the sand regarding overtime.
“That’s fine,” said Rudovsky, her eyes fixed on the back of Chapman as he organised his desk ready for a CCTV session.
“But I’ll come in early…” added Worthington, keen to show that his commitment to picking the kids up was not a reflection on his enthusiasm for finding out who was responsible for that horrific attack on Hartley.
“No worries Mike. See you in the morning.”
“I’ve got to go as well,” said Kenyon.
“That’s fine, don’t worry about it. I didn’t think we’d see all this lot until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest anyway. See you tomorrow Pete.”
Kenyon left the office with Worthington. It looked as though they both felt awkward as they abandoned the team.
“I’m alright to stay for a bit…” said DC Helen Grant once the departing officers were through the door.
“Oh right, nice one Helen.”
Rudovsky handed an envelope to Grant. “This is the CCTV footage belonging to the Park Inn.” She turned and pointed at the map of Monton village on the wall. “This is the pub on the corner, next to the entrance to the crime scene. The attack happened a good two hundred and fifty yards away from here, along the path. But this is going to contain the last footage of anybody leaving or entering the path through Eccles Field.”
“We’ve already had this, haven’t we?”
“Yes, obviously, but only for the night of the attack. We had footage of Hartley jogging that way, and our search of the footage didn’t show anybody fitting the attacker’s profile, riding a Carrera bike in the hours leading up to the attack. So, we came to the conclusion that the attacker had come from the other side of Eccles Field.”
Grant remembered. “Okay, well, I’ll start from the previous day, and work backwards, like Bill.”
“Excellent. Well, I’ll let you make a start and I’ll make us all a brew.”
Chapter Eleven
It was always obvious when the Manchester police were holding a major press conference. The road outside their huge modern HQ building near Hyde Road was littered with outside-broadcast vehicles, parked illegally on double-yellows, ironically. Half a dozen of the vans with huge satellite dishes on their rooves blocked out sight of the entrance to the building, as the broadcasters tried to get their transmission kit as close to the media-centre complex as possible, to minimise the cable runs to their cameras and sound equipment.
Every major broadcaster was here, vans from ITV News, BBC, Sky, Global, RT and PA gave a visual indication of how just big this news story was. The shocking images of the devastated building in Denton had made up the news headlines all day. Now it was time to hear what the police had to say about it.
“Good afternoon ladies and gents,” said Miller as he sat down on the platform before the cameras and sound recorders. It was clear that the usually charismatic DCI was in a sombre mood. The reason soon became very clear, as Miller launched into his press-conference in a shocking manner.
He didn’t say anything, he just pressed a button on the laptop on the table-top. Suddenly a photograph of a happy, smiling young family appeared on the huge screen to Miller’s right. The parents looked mid-twenties, the beautiful, smiling children looked angelic as they showed their perfectly white baby teeth, their faces were beaming with joy.
Miller let the media personnel look at the photograph. He was in no hurry to start talking. He made a mental note of the “on-air” lights above the Sky and BBC TV cameras. The realisation that this was being broadcast live encouraged him to keep the silence going for a little bit longer and add even more of an impact to what he was about to say.
Eventually he spoke. His voice was cold and emotional. “The photograph that you are looking at there, is a picture of the Ozols family, taken during the family’s summer holiday at Pontins in Southport. The dad, Andris, the little lad, Juris, and the little lass, Inga, were murdered in their beds last night.” Miller’s voice faltered as he delivered the news. There was a very audible sound of emotion amongst the media personnel, too. The sight of this happy, care-free family smiling at them all was a very powerful image which chilled them all to the core.
“The mum, Marija is currently in a very poorly condition in hospital. We think that she knows that her family have died, but we haven’t had the opportunity to speak to her yet as she is very poorly and is presently in a medically induced coma while doctors try to figure out a way to heal her severe burn injuries.”
A fresh wave of sadness washed over all of the men and women in the packed media-centre, many of whom were parents themselves.
“It was a deliberate arson attack, which killed three members of this young family. But before we talk about that, I wish to make an appeal to the person, or persons responsible for this tragedy. I am of the opinion that you did not know that there was a young family sleeping in that property when the fire was started. I want to offer you my word that I am quite prepared to keep an open mind that the heart-breaking outcome of this horrendous incident was unintentional. So, if you were there, I want you to get in touch with me. I’ll put the number up on the screen in a few minutes, but before I do, I want to tell you all a little bit about this family. They have lived in Denton for three years, they moved here from Latvia. Dad, there, Andris, worked as a butcher at Bretherton’s butcher shop at Crown Point. Mum, Marija worked part-time at the Subway store in Denton whilst the two children Juris and Inga were at school, at St Anne’s Primary. This family have been described as happy, friendly, hard-working and very good neighbours. Andris’ boss at the butchers has said that he has never known a more hard-working and conscientious employee in over thirty years in the trade. Marija
’s manager at Subway described her as extremely hard-working, friendly and very popular with the store’s customers. Juris and Inga’s headteacher at St Anne’s has today described them as adorable, happy little children who were loved by everybody within the school community.”
Miller stopped talking and looked up at the photograph. It was clear that he was very upset about this tragedy himself, despite his image of being a hardened police detective with years of experience of disturbing crimes.
“I know that you have all been linking last night’s arson attack to the other attacks which have been carried out against betting shops in the area over the past fortnight. As most of you have reported today, this fire was started in the Bet-a-Days betting shop. The family lived in the flat above, and all the evidence we have so far suggests that the Ozols family were the innocent victims of a crime which was intended to damage the shop.”
Miller pressed a button on his laptop and the screen changed from the family photo, to an image of the four betting shops which had been targeted.
“Now, a major line of enquiry centres around these attacks. It is not our only line of enquiry, I must stress. But it is significant, and we are very hopeful that these four crime scenes will provide some important information about the people who did this.”
Miller stopped for a moment to take a sip from his glass of water. Every person in the packed-out media-centre was staring at him, waiting to hear his next sentence, desperate to know what was going on. “I want to make something very clear, if you know of anybody who has been involved with these activities against betting shops, I am appealing directly to you to contact me. I am quite sure that the people behind this will have mentioned it to others in the community. If this is the case, I am urging you, please do not take the law into your own hands. If you know who these people are, or just one of them, please, contact the police and let us deal with this matter. You can also contact Crime-Stoppers where all calls are treated confidentially.”
Miller pressed his laptop again, and the phone numbers of the incident room and of Crime-Stoppers appeared on the screen.
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