Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set Three

by P. F. Ford

  ‘I’d like you to know this is an outrage,’ said the solicitor. ‘My client strongly denies all charges—’

  ‘No one has made any charges yet, have they?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘So it’s a bit early to be denying anything, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mr Randall couldn’t have been driving the car that knocked down the police officer.’

  ‘Yes, we know that,’ said Slater. ‘We’ve already established his wife had the car last night. I’m not questioning Mr Randall about DS Norton. I want to question him about his wife’s involvement in another matter.’

  This seemed to silence the solicitor, for the time being. For all his outrage, he obviously wasn’t up to speed with the circumstances behind his client’s situation.

  ‘Now then, Mr Randall,’ said Slater. ‘You understand we believe Diana ran down DS Colin Norton last night, and we’re confident when we find your car there will be damage to back up our theory.’

  ‘Poppycock,’ snapped Randall.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Slater.

  ‘I thought you weren’t asking about last night?’ asked the solicitor.

  ‘The cases overlap,’ said Slater. ‘If you’ll just let me finish, you’ll understand.’ He turned his attention back to Randall. ‘Now, Alan, when we spoke before, you told us your wife couldn’t have children.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s not true, is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s no mention of it in her medical records,’ said Watson. ‘That would seem to be a pretty fundamental piece of medical information for a woman, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Of course it’s in her records!’ said Randall, in disbelief. ‘It must be. She had treatment.’

  ‘When did you first know about your wife’s problem?’

  ‘After we got married. She went to her doctor about it. She was so disappointed when she came home and told me.’

  ‘You didn’t go with her?’ asked Watson.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘So you can’t be sure she even went to the doctor.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ snapped Randall. ‘Why on earth would she have lied about something like that!’

  Slater consulted his notes. ‘Did you know your wife went to an abortion clinic in March 2000?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Watson took a sheet of paper from the folder before her and placed it in front of Randall. ‘For the tape, I’m showing Mr Randall a copy of Mrs Randall’s receipt for payment to the Braeburn Clinic,’ she announced.

  Randall quickly scanned the paper. ‘But this is absurd. There must be some mistake.’

  ‘It would be absurd if she really wanted children,’ said Watson.

  ‘But she was desperate for a child, that’s why we adopted Sonny,’ said Randall, wringing his hands.

  ‘Mm, yes, the adoption,’ said Slater. ‘We’ll come back to how you came to have Sonny in a minute. What can you tell me about your wife’s relationship with Colin Norton?’

  ‘I told you before, they worked together.’

  ‘Oh, they did much more than that together, Mr Randall,’ said Slater. ‘In fact, we believe Colin Norton was the father of the baby your wife aborted back in March 2000. It was a fourteen-week foetus, so it can’t have been yours because you were on an environmental expedition in the Antarctic from October 1999 until April 2000.’

  Randall gaped at Slater as though he had just punched him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Randall, but all this happened while you were away. The thing is, we believe Diana soon regretted having the abortion, and she realised she actually wanted a baby more than she wanted that new job, but you’d already bought the house, and she’d already got the promotion. It was a bit like a speeding train she couldn’t get off.’

  Randall stared at his hands. His mouth sagged open, and for a few seconds he looked as if all the fight had gone out of him, rather like a deflated balloon. ‘This is all lies,’ he said, sadly.

  ‘Is it?’ asked Slater. ‘Did you know Colin Norton’s wife divorced him on the grounds of adultery?’

  ‘I’ve only got your word for that. I don’t understand why you’re trying to ruin my wife’s reputation. She has nothing to with Colin Norton.’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but Colin Norton is a regular caller to Diana’s mobile phone.’

  Randall said nothing. Slater let him stew for a minute or two before he spoke again. ‘Tell us about when Sonny disappeared,’ said Slater.

  Randall turned dull eyes upon Slater. ‘It was terrible. We never did find out who snatched him.’

  ‘And you’re quite sure he was snatched, are you?’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you going to tell me that was all lies, too?’

  ‘I noticed something about the photographs,’ said Slater.

  Watson slipped the photo of Sonny’s bike from the folder and announced for the tape as she placed it in front of Randall.

  ‘You see the bike? It’s far too neatly parked for a snatch,’ said Slater. ‘You see, when kids get snatched, whatever they were playing with tends to get flung aside, yet here’s Sonny’s bike, all neatly parked, up on its stand. Now that tells us there was nothing rushed about what happened that day, and we think that’s because Sonny knew and trusted the person who abducted him.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Did Diana resent giving up her career?’ asked Slater. ‘Did she blame Sonny, even though it was her own fault she had to resign?’

  ‘Diana loved Sonny. She would never have hurt him. She loved him like he was her own.’

  ‘But he wasn’t her own, was he?’

  Randall retreated within himself again, refusing to make eye contact with Slater or Watson.

  ‘Did Colin Norton know Sonny?’

  ‘Yes, of course he did. Colin used to play football with him whenever he came to our house.’

  ‘So Sonny would have trusted Colin?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ asked Randall.

  ‘Maybe nothing,’ said Slater. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting Colin had anything to do with Sonny’s disappearance, are you? He was one of the first to volunteer to help with the searches.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ said Slater. ‘That was very noble of him, don’t you think? Especially after Diana had aborted his baby.’

  Randall refused to rise to the bait, so Slater tried a different tack. ‘Losing Sonny must have been really hard to deal with,’ he said.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly imagine,’ snapped Randall. ‘We were devastated!’

  ‘So you know a little of what it was like for Sonny’s real father?’ asked Slater.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, don’t you think he was devastated when someone took his son?

  ‘Of course, but—’

  ‘We believe he lost his wife at the same time. How do you think he would have felt after that? Someone ran down his wife, took his son, and sold him to you?’

  ‘What? No! It wasn’t like that. I didn’t buy him. He was there when I got home—’ Suddenly Randall stopped talking.

  ‘Do go on, Mr Randall,’ said Slater. ‘What do you mean he was there when you got home?’

  ‘My client isn’t going to answer any more questions at this time,’ announced the solicitor. ‘I think I need to spend some time with him before he says anything more.’

  Slater had been expecting the solicitor to intervene a lot sooner than this, so he wasn’t at all surprised by this development. He knew they would get no more from Randall now, and five minutes later, he was taken back to his cell.

  Chapter 40

  Slater and Watson were drinking coffee in Styles’ office while they waited for him to finish his telephone call. ‘I’m told Alan Randall’s car has been tracked using ANPR,’ he said, putting the phone down. ‘We’ve got it all the
way down the motorway and further south. It looks like Diana was driving and it was last caught just outside town.’

  ‘That more or less proves it was her that ran down Norton, then,’ said Slater.

  ‘But surely she would have known about ANPR enabling us to track the car,’ said Styles.

  ‘Yes, but we weren’t looking for her when she was on the way down, were we?’ said Slater.

  ‘But she’s made it easy for us to build a case proving she was here.’

  ‘Maybe she just doesn’t care what we can prove,’ said Watson. ‘She’s seen the statistics. She would have known all along that her son was almost certainly dead, and she might even have had a good idea who was responsible. If something’s now happened to prove her suspicions, perhaps all she cares about is revenge, and she doesn’t give a damn about being caught.’

  They silently pondered Watson’s suggestion before Styles changed the subject. ‘So what do you think Randall meant when he said Sonny was there when he got home?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, that’s been playing on my mind,’ said Slater. ‘I was sure they were both in on it and they had paid someone to get a baby for them, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘We still think Sonny Randall was actually Kylie Mason and David Hudson’s son, don’t we?’ asked Watson.

  ‘Only because of the pendant,’ said Slater.

  ‘So, what if Diana was heading back home after her leaving party and she brought the baby back with her?’ suggested Watson.

  ‘Yeah, but where did she get it from?’

  ‘Well, we know she’s not averse to running people down,’ said Watson.

  ‘But she could have killed the baby,’ said Slater. ‘Would she risk killing them both?’

  ‘You’re assuming she did it on purpose,’ said Watson. ‘What if it was an accident? We know she’d been at a party. What if she’d had too much to drink and she came up behind Kylie and didn’t see her until it was too late? She knocks Kylie down and kills her, but by some miracle the baby escapes unhurt.’

  Slater nodded his approval. ‘Now, that’s a possibility. She can’t report it because she’s been drinking and she’s got too much to lose, so she pushes Kylie’s body into the ditch and takes the baby home with her.’

  ‘You’ll need a bit more proof than that,’ said Styles, ‘but it’s an interesting theory. Anyway, I thought you were also suggesting Diana Randall later murdered the boy, is that right?’

  ‘It’s another possibility we had considered,’ agreed Slater. ‘But why would she then drive a hundred miles to dump the body in the same ditch as Kylie Mason? Why do that and risk both bodies being found? It makes no sense. If they hadn’t been together in that ditch, we would never have connected them in a million years.’

  ‘I think you need to push Alan Randall a lot harder,’ said Styles. ‘Find out what he meant when he said the baby was there when he got home.’

  ‘I’m not sure he can tell us what we want to know,’ said Slater. ‘He might be sharing a house with Diana Randall, but they’re not sharing much else that I can see.’ He thought for a moment, then addressed Styles. ‘You know Colin Norton, what can you tell us about him?’

  ‘I’ve only been here for three years, but in my opinion he’s the sort of guy you’d rather not have around. He just about does enough to keep his job, and that’s about it. He has zero personality, and yet, I’m told he once used to be very popular with the ladies.’

  ‘Is he vindictive?’ asked Slater.

  ‘He’s definitely an “eye for an eye” sort of bloke. He thinks we should be dishing out punishment beatings. It’s his idea of justice.’

  ‘D’you think he’s capable of blackmail? Only we think someone could have been blackmailing Diana Randall because they knew how she’d come by Sonny. He was close to her then, so he could well have known.’

  Styles didn’t take long to consider this before he answered. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’

  ‘So, if he found out Diana had aborted his baby, d’you think he’d want revenge?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Styles, ‘but maybe that’s what he was blackmailing her about, and he knew nothing about how she got Sonny.’

  ‘Yes, but if he did know about Sonny, and then he found out about her abortion . . .’ Slater left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘If you’re suggesting he would have murdered her son, I’m not so sure he would go that far.’

  ‘Maybe he hadn’t intended to kill him. Perhaps it was just intended to be a warning but it got out of hand?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a stretch, if you ask me,’ said Styles.

  ‘But it would give Diana a motive to run him down and try to kill him,’ Watson pointed out.

  ‘But why now?’ asked Styles. ‘If she knew he’d taken her son, why wait until now to get even? Why not go after him when it happened?’

  ‘Maybe she only just found out,’ said Slater. ‘Perhaps the fact we found the body in the ditch was the proof she needed.’

  ‘But didn’t this all start with an anonymous tip-off about a body somewhere in Trillington? Have you any idea who sent that?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ admitted Slater. ‘It did occur to me that it could have been Norton. Maybe he was blackmailing Diana and she stopped paying so he gave us the tip-off.’

  ‘But how does that work?’ asked Styles. ‘He’d have to be pretty bloody stupid to send you to the place where he’s buried a body, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Maybe we were only supposed to find one body.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s a copper,’ argued Styles. ‘He would have known there was good chance you would search the whole area. No, I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.’

  ‘Perhaps we were supposed to assume Diana killed them both,’ added Watson before reminding Slater, ‘You were thinking that way.’

  Slater sighed in frustration. ‘We need to speak to both of them,’ he said, ‘because all we’ve got is supposition. I don’t think even Alan Randall can help us much even if he wanted to, and we can’t hold him for much longer anyway. Without a confession from someone, we can prove sod all.’

  ‘We need to focus on Diana Randall then,’ said Styles, ‘because if there’s one thing I can tell you for sure, it’s that Colin Norton is going nowhere!’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s five thirty. You two might as well get off. I’ll let you know if we find Diana.’

  Chapter 41

  ‘This case is driving me mad,’ said Slater as Watson drove them out of the car park. ‘We’ve got it down to two main suspects and now one of them’s in a coma, and the other one’s disappeared! Are you with me on this or have I got it completely wrong?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much doubt Diana ran down Norton,’ said Watson, ‘and she must have had a good reason, so I would say it’s quite possible, but without some sort of evidence to back it up, it’s all just speculation.’

  At that moment, Slater’s mobile phone began to ring. He fumbled around in his pocket for what seemed like an age, but finally he got it to his ear. The phone was connected to the car by Bluetooth, and Styles’ voice boomed in the speakers

  ‘Slater, it’s Styles. Randall’s car has just been spotted going into the multi-storey car park at the new shopping centre on the eastern side of town. I’ve got people closing in as we speak. If you want to make your way over there, you can help us catch her.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Slater. He took in the solid traffic they were crawling along in. ‘We’re on the other side of town but we’re on our way. We’ll get there as quick as we can.’

  ‘Take the ring road,’ said Styles, ‘it’s the quickest way by far at this time of day.’

  They were almost on top of the nearest turning onto the ring road, and Watson stamped on the brakes and swung the wheel hard to the left as someone began frantically honking from behind them.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, nervously.

  ‘No problem,’ said Slater, sounding much more calm than he f
elt. ‘That was quick thinking and it beats trying to find somewhere to turn around in this traffic.’

  It took them almost half an hour to crawl the three miles around the ring road so they could come in to town from the eastern side. Slater had been impressed by Watson’s composure and patience driving through such heavy traffic, especially after one driver had cut her up for the third time as she was trying to turn off the ring road and into town.

  ‘For God’s sake, piss off, you wanker,’ she muttered.

  It was the first time he’d heard her say anything like that, and Slater couldn’t stop himself laughing out loud. Watson seemed to have momentarily forgotten he was there, and she gave him a horrified look when he laughed. ‘Oh, goodness, pardon me. I’m so sorry, sir.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, you don’t have to apologise for abusing an idiot like that, you were far more polite than I would have been,’ he said. ‘If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d suggest we pull the guy over and give him an earful.’

  ‘Oh right, well, even so, it’s not very professional, is it?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Slater. ‘Stop worrying about it. Where’s this car park?’

  ‘It’s not far, I did a quick recce the day I arrived,’ she explained.

  ‘You mean you wanted to know where the best shops are?’

  ‘Well, yes, that as well,’ she said, slightly embarrassed. Then she indicated left and turned off the road. ‘Here we are.’

  A young, harassed-looking uniformed officer was turning angry motorists away from the barrier and waved frantically at Watson as she ignored his signals to turn away. She pressed a button and her window glided down as she pulled up next to him.

  ‘Can’t you see me waving at you?’ he snapped, angrily.

  ‘Of course I can,’ she said, giving him a winning smile and waving her warrant card at him. ‘DS Brearley and DI Slater,’ she said. ‘I think we’re expected.’

  He looked at the card, but it was her smile that won him over. ‘Oh, right, yes, miss, I’m sorry.’