Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set Three

by P. F. Ford

  Watson smiled at the reference. Norm, or Norman Norman, to give him his full name, was Slater’s friend and former colleague. A rather rotund individual, he had recently suffered a heart attack and was now having to face up to the fact he needed to change his lifestyle – or else. ‘How’s he getting on?’ she asked.

  ‘Last time I saw him he was twenty pounds lighter than when he keeled over and making good progress.’

  ‘D’you think he’ll stick to it?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Slater. ‘I really hope so.’ He stared into the distance for a moment. ‘Anyway, back to Diana Randall. I think we need to take a closer look at her, even if it’s just to satisfy my own curiosity.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it when we get back,’ said Watson.

  ‘No, it’s okay. I think I should do it. I want you to see if you can learn any more about this pendant.’

  Chapter 10

  As they pulled up back at their mobile office, a visibly excited Henry Cutter appeared. ‘Have you two had a chance to check your email today?’

  ‘We’ve been out all day,’ said Slater. ‘We haven’t really had time.’

  ‘They’ve finished the DNA analysis, and when they ran it against the database, they got a hit!’

  ‘How did that happen? Did the parents submit a sample when the boy went missing?’ asked Watson.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Cutter. ‘All I know is the father is called David Hudson.’

  ‘Hudson?’ repeated Slater in surprise.

  ‘According to the experts, David Hudson is the father. They didn’t find a match for the mother. Her DNA’s not on the database.’

  ‘So it’s not Alan and Diana Randall?’ asked Slater, his voice filed with disappointment.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Slater puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, I won’t deny I’m surprised.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Cutter, ‘but DNA doesn’t lie.’

  ‘So who’s this Hudson guy? And what’s he done to get himself on the database.’

  ‘They didn’t send that much detail,’ said Cutter. ‘You’ll have to find that out for yourself.’

  Slater turned to Watson, but she was already on her way up the steps to their office door. ‘I’m on it,’ she said, unlocking the door and disappearing inside.

  ‘You look a bit miffed,’ said Cutter to Slater.

  ‘Well, yeah, I have to admit I am a bit disappointed in a way. I was convinced we’d found Sonny Randall, and I was even beginning to think his parents might have killed him.’

  ‘So I guess I’ve spoilt your day again,’ said Cutter. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Of course, it’s possible David Hudson knew Mrs Randall, and they were more than just friends.’

  Slater looked doubtful. ‘I suppose it would explain a few things.’

  ‘Then again, maybe I just like the idea of starting a malicious rumour,’ admitted Cutter with a rueful grin.

  Slater smiled. ‘There’s definitely something funny about that woman. I swear she recognised the pendant, but she was adamant it couldn’t be her son.’

  ‘Did you get a DNA sample from them?’

  ‘They point-blank refused,’ said Slater, ‘and then her husband threw us out.’

  ‘So maybe I’m right and they know it’s not his kid,’ said Cutter.

  ‘Yeah, but what’s the point? We’re going to find out anyway.’

  ‘That maybe so, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to help you do it. If I’m right, you’re just about to ruin their lives. Why would he want to help you do that?’

  Slater could see Cutter’s point. ‘I’ll bear your malicious rumour theory in mind,’ he said as he headed for his office. ‘I’ve heard crazier ideas.’

  * * *

  ‘So, what do we know?’ asked Slater as he walked into the office.

  Watson didn’t look up from her laptop. ‘Well, we know it looks like Diana Randall was right. It can’t be her son, can it?’

  ‘Henry thinks maybe she knew Hudson.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Slater pulled a face. ‘We can’t afford to rule it out, at least not yet. And you have to admit, it might explain her weird behaviour.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that,’ agreed Watson. ‘But whoever the father is, I still think I was right, and that was just her way of dealing with it.’

  ‘Hmm, maybe,’ conceded Slater, moodily. ‘Anyway, what do we have on this Hudson bloke?’

  ‘I’m just getting to it,’ said Watson, studying her screen. ‘Ah, here we are. David Hudson, sentenced to six months in prison for assaulting a police officer.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘It says here he was sentenced in March 2001,’ said Watson. ‘It was local, too. The assault took place in Ramlinstoke Police Station.’

  ‘Does it say who he thumped, and why?’

  ‘It says the lead officer was a DS Colin Norton.’

  ‘That begs the question: what was Hudson doing in Ramlinstoke Police Station?’ asked Slater. ‘I think it’s a bit of a coincidence that he should smack a copper on the nose less than five miles from where his son was found.’

  ‘But it was years before he died,’ said Watson. ‘Do you think it could be relevant?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if anything we’ve learnt so far is relevant,’ said Slater, absently. He was scanning through the list of missing children they had been sent. ‘But there is something worrying me that definitely is relevant.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Watson.

  Slater looked up from his list. ‘If this is Hudson’s son we’ve found, then why isn’t he on this missing kids list?’

  Chapter 11

  Slater was immersed in scouring records to find out whatever he could about Diana Randall. He had tasked Watson to do the same for David Hudson. Unlikely as it might seem, it was always possible they could find a connection that proved they knew each other and that Cutter’s malicious rumour was actually correct.

  As Slater had thought, Diana Randall had indeed been a bit special. She hadn’t just been a high-flyer, she had been positively stratospheric. So much so that she had made the move to Flipton to become DI at just thirty years of age, and yet, just four years later, she had resigned. He could find nothing to suggest exactly why she had resigned, which was suspicious in itself as far as he was concerned. He wondered if Supt Bradshaw might be able to help find out why. He’d known all about Slater’s past, after all, so it was worth asking. He rattled off a quick email to his boss and went back to his research.

  Now that was interesting. Diana Randall had been a DS at Ramlinstoke before she transferred to Flipton. That would have been, what, eighteen years ago? And hadn’t Watson said Hudson had been in Ramlinstoke around that time? The plot was definitely thickening.

  ‘Get this,’ he said to Watson, who looked up from the computer screen. ‘Diana Randall was a DS, here in Ramlinstoke, before she got the DI job at Flipton.’

  ‘But she never mentioned that when we told her where the body had been found!’

  ‘So, you spotted that, too? It makes you wonder why she would keep that to herself, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Her husband kept quiet about it, too,’ Watson pointed out.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Slater. ‘Whatever’s going on, he’s part of it.’

  Diana had married Alan Randall when she was twenty-six. He was fourteen years her senior. Slater wasted a couple of minutes on idle speculation about what the attraction was, and then remembered the house and what Watson had told him about how Randall made a living. There was obviously plenty of money sloshing around, and Slater very much doubted it was Diana’s.

  He continued going back into her history. Her maiden name was Murphy. Hadn’t the pendant been made by an Irish silversmith? He wondered if that proved anything. He thought probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to pass the information back to the team at base. They were looking into the pendant so it wouldn’t hurt to see if there w
as a connection.

  He decided he’d wait to see if Bradshaw could come up with anything relating to Diana’s resignation and logged out of the database. Then he turned his attention to the file they had picked up from Flipton. He was hoping there would perhaps be something in there that would give him a lead, but it didn’t take long for him to realise this had been a pretty thorough, and intensive, investigation. No stone seemed to have been left unturned in their search for young Sonny Randall, and yet for all that effort, they had no idea what had happened or where he had gone. Slater knew from experience just how intensive a missing child investigation could be. It hardly seemed possible that so much effort could have failed to produce a result, yet that’s what appeared to have happened.

  As he reached the last page of the file, he felt slightly guilty at the idea he should be checking up on his colleagues at Flipton when he knew they must have gone through all this information again and again hoping to find something they had missed.

  ‘Well, if it’s there, I’ve missed it too,’ he muttered.

  ‘Sorry, sir, did you speak?’ asked Watson, from her side of the tiny office.

  ‘Just mumbling to myself.’ Slater closed the file, leaned back in his chair, yawned extravagantly, and stretched his back. Then he got up to stretch his legs. ‘Well, apart from the fact Diana Randall worked in Ramlinstoke before she moved to Flipton, I’m afraid I’ve come up with nothing significant, so I hope you’re doing better,’ he said. ‘Have you found an address for David Hudson?’

  Watson tapped away at her keyboard and studied her screen. ‘David Hudson, born August 1976, both parents died when he was young, spent most of his childhood in care, joined the army at eighteen, left four years later. There doesn’t seem to be a current address. His last known address is from ten years ago. But I think you’ll find it quite interesting.’ She turned to Slater. ‘He was living in Flipton Dene.’

  ‘This is all very coincidental, isn’t it?’ said Slater. ‘And it’s not exactly a big village. There must be a chance he might have known the Randalls.’

  ‘A very good chance, I would think,’ said Watson, studying her screen again. ‘I’ve just pulled it up on the map. He lived in a cottage on a farm owned by a Major Stanley. Guess who one of the Major’s neighbours is?’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Slater.

  ‘Remember that lane the Randalls’ house is on? Well, Major Stanley’s farm is at the end of it. He would have driven past their house every time he came out to go anywhere.’

  ‘So we know Hudson is the father of the dead child, and we suspect Diana Randall is the mother. We also know he left there ten years ago, and that the Randalls’ little boy also disappeared ten years ago,’ said Slater.

  ‘Surely they would have checked that out at the time,’ said Watson.

  ‘I would hope so,’ agreed Slater, ‘but they didn’t know he was the child’s father, did they? There’s certainly no mention of it in their case file. As far as I’m concerned, he becomes much more significant now we know that.’

  ‘But are we sure there really is a connection between the two cases?’

  ‘No,’ said Slater. ‘But we’re not sure there isn’t one, and as we know for sure Hudson is the father of our victim, we need to find him, and find out what we can about him. See if you can find a phone number for this Major Stanley. Give him a call and see if he’s willing to tell us anything about Hudson. I’m going to see if I can speak to this DS Norton that Hudson assaulted. Maybe he can give us some insight into the man. Then I’ll make the tea.’

  Five minutes later, Slater carried two mugs of steaming tea into the office. Watson looked up as he approached. ‘The Major says Hudson moved on ten years ago, but if we would like to pay him a visit, he would be more than happy to talk to us. He says he can tell us quite a lot about Hudson. Apparently he served under the Major in the army.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ said Slater. ‘Make us an appointment for—’

  ‘We’re seeing him tomorrow morning,’ said Watson. ‘I hope that’s okay?’

  Slater smiled. ‘Good work, Watson.’

  ‘Any luck with DS Norton?’

  ‘It’ll have to keep,’ said Slater. ‘Apparently he’s away on leave. Not back until next week.’

  Chapter 12

  As they drove up the lane to reach the Major’s farm, Slater couldn’t stop himself from staring at the Randalls’ house.

  ‘You’d really like to have another go at them, wouldn’t you?’ asked Watson.

  ‘It would be fair to say they’re somewhere near the top of my wish list,’ he agreed. ‘I’m sure we have unfinished business with the Randalls, it’s just that, right now, I’m not quite sure what it is.’

  For some reason he couldn’t explain, Slater had a picture in his head of what the Major was going to look like. In Slater’s mind, he was going to be a short, plump, ruddy-faced man in his seventies, who would be full of bluster and endlessly complaining about the youth of today. In fact, Major Stanley was nothing like that, being very slim, upright, and six feet two inches tall. His handsome, fifty-something face was topped with a head of thick fair hair, and his bright blue eyes had a sharpness about them that told them he was no fool.

  ‘This farm house has been in the family for generations,’ he explained as he led them into the house. ‘It doesn’t look much from the outside, but we’ve made a lot of improvements inside.’ He opened a door and stepped back to allow them through.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Watson as she walked into the room. ‘Now this is what I call a kitchen. I could fit my whole flat in here.’

  ‘It’s taken a lot of work to bring it all up to date,’ said the Major, proudly. ‘My wife is the one with the vision, I just keep the farm going to pay for it all.’

  ‘This is very nice,’ said Slater. ‘I wouldn’t mind a kitchen like this myself.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said the Major. He fussed around making coffee for everyone while they continued to talk about the farm. ‘This small talk is all very well,’ he said as he carried a tray with their drinks across to the table, ‘but I know you didn’t come here to admire my wife’s flair for kitchen design. Why don’t you sit down and we can get down to business? You don’t mind sitting at the kitchen table, do you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Slater. ‘It’s much more practical for taking notes than balancing a notebook on a knee.’

  ‘Are you allowed to tell me why you want to know about David?’ asked the Major.

  ‘I can tell you his name has come up in an investigation. We’re not sure exactly how he fits in at the moment, and as we’re not sure where he is, we can’t actually speak to him directly. We’re hoping you can give us some background and maybe a clue as to where he might be.’

  ‘Keeping it vague, eh, Inspector? Can’t say I expected much else really. So, what do you want to know?’

  ‘I suppose the first question I have to ask is how did David Hudson come to be living in one of your cottages?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Let me start at the beginning,’ said the Major. ‘I first met David Hudson when he was a young private in the army. He would have been about eighteen years old. He was a quiet, shy lad, but like any eighteen-year-old, he liked to go out with his mates and have a drink. The problem for Hudson was his height and size. He was still a boy, but in a man’s body. At six feet five inches, and seventeen stone, he literally stood out from the crowd, and that made him a target.

  ‘You know what it’s like, squaddies are often targeted by local thugs, and the bigger the squaddie, the more people want to take him on. Consequently, he got into a fight nearly every weekend, and every Monday morning he would be wheeled into my office on a charge.’

  ‘He didn’t start the fights then?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Good heavens, no! He was a real gentle giant. Most times he didn’t even retaliate when he did get picked on.’

  ‘Not being prepared to fight back hardly sounds like the make-up of a soldier,’ Slater observe
d.

  ‘Actually, the ones who see red don’t make very good soldiers,’ said the Major. ‘You want cool heads, not short fuses, but that’s getting off the point. David Hudson was a bright young man who showed a lot of promise, but because he was such a frequent Monday-morning visitor, I knew he wasn’t going to get very far unless someone showed a bit of interest in his future.’

  ‘So you started to look out for him?’ asked Watson.

  ‘I tried to do it for all my men, especially the younger ones. It’s all very well having corporals and sergeants shouting at you all the time, but sometimes these young lads need a father figure. Hudson probably needed that more than most as he was an orphan.’

  ‘So you got to know him?’ Slater asked.

  Major Stanley gave a little smile. ‘It’s a delicate balancing act. You know someone needs a bit of help and encouragement, but you can’t be seen to be showing favour towards anyone.’

  ‘But you managed?’

  ‘I think I was probably the first person who had taken an interest in him. He was interested in machines, and in farming, so with my farming background it was quite easy for me to encourage that interest. I persuaded him that if he wanted to get into farming when he left the army, he needed to study.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘I’ll say! He didn’t exactly become a bookworm, but he cut back on the drinking and socialising and focused on his studies. For the first time, he knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.’

  ‘So you saved him from himself?’ suggested Watson.

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s fair,’ said the Major. ‘That makes it sound like he was a big problem, but that’s not how it was. I didn’t save him from anything, he did it all himself. I showed him the way, but then he saved himself – not from himself, but from his circumstances.’