Jay finished his sandwich and crumpled the wrapper. Then he straightened it out and smoothed it flat, folding and refolding until it became a small parcel. He drained the last of his tea in the paper cup and crumpled the parcel into it. Then he gave a huge sigh and sat quietly with his hands on the table.
Dan caught Sally’s eye as she arrived, and pointed at the window. She looked in and grinned. ‘Pussycat, this one,’ she said, and opened the door.
Dan signalled to Larcombe to start the tapes, and joined Sally who introduced them for the record. ‘Jay, nice to meet you at last,’ he said. ‘You certainly got one over on me, nipping out through the bedroom window while I was talking to your mum. Anyway, let’s talk about these murders down at the beach. What would you like to tell us?’
Jay Vine looked from one officer to the other then back at the table. ‘I …’
‘Best if you just tell it to us straight, Jay,’ said Sally. ‘We have Scarlett and Amber in custody, as well as your professor, so there’s not much point in lying to us, because we can cross-check everything you say, can’t we?’
‘And,’ added Dan, ‘you’re clearly an intelligent, resourceful young man who got as far as Jersey without being caught. So, use that intelligence now. If you help us, we will do the very best we can to get the court to see that you have been cooperative …’
‘You can stop all the crap, now,’ muttered Jay. ‘I wanted to be caught, okay? I’ve been almost killed because of all this shit. I ran because of her, not you. She’ll kill me properly if she finds out I’m alive, so go on, ask what you like. I’m staying in here where I’m safe.’
‘Tana made an attempt on your life? It wasn’t a suicide bid?’
Jay snorted. ‘She’d obviously never done it before – didn’t give me enough stuff, or wait until I was properly unconscious. Then she could have smothered me. Job done.’
Dan shrugged. It was as good a place as any to start. ‘Right, Tana came to your room and somehow persuaded you to take paracetamol and whisky?’
‘You are going to take this into account when you charge me, aren’t you? That I cooperated and told you all I know?’
Sally smiled at him. ‘Of course we are, love. We appreciate Tana has treated you badly. You’d like to see her face justice, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I would, but, no offence, she’s thought all this through. She’s untraceable, just like she told us she would be. It was me who realised she would just drop the rest of us in it once she had what she wanted from us. That’s why they came after me. She thought I’d tell you. And she was right, I would have.’
‘You said “they” came after you. Who else was there, Jay?’
‘She had Kegan with her. He’s always with her. He’s under her spell all right. He hit me and held me down while she poured it all down my throat.’
Sally interrupted. ‘So you’re not Kegan, Jay?’
‘No, I was Idris. I only know Scarlett and Amber’s names because they’re my friends. Kegan’s not at Exeter uni, he’s a bodybuilder type. Works at some sort of gym, I think. No idea what he’s really called.’ He banged a fist half-heartedly on the table. ‘She got that right, didn’t she? She knew all of us, but we knew nothing about her.’ He glanced at the two detectives. ‘I told you, she’s thought it all through.’
Dan nodded at the one-way glass, hoping that one sergeant would start the checking process for Kegan. It was better than nothing. He stifled a growing wriggle of excitement in his chest. Maybe now they would get somewhere. ‘What about an address for him?’
Jay thought. ‘Well, we used to meet at Tana’s flat. She has a studio flat in Pennsylvania, quite near uni. I don’t know the actual street address though.’
Sally leaned towards him. ‘Could you point it out on a map?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, and looked up at her.
‘Good lad.’ Sally opened her phone and clicked on Google maps.
Dan smiled at Jay. ‘You’re doing great, Jay. This will look a lot better for you in court.’
‘I’m still going down though, aren’t I?’
Dan shrugged. ‘We don’t prosecute the cases, but yes, I think we’ll have enough evidence to say that you knew what you were doing, but we need to let the jury decide on the strength of your belief in what Tana was peddling.’ He stopped talking. What was he doing, prattling on and giving the kid clues? That’s what the lawyers were paid for. He couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for the three of them though. Bravado apart, their lives were ruined.
Sally stood beside Jay, showed him the map, and pointed at the main Pennsylvania Road. ‘Go on, Jay, show us.’
Jay followed the line of the road and stopped at a small, square block of flats. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Number 18.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dan. ‘Back soon,’ and he took Sally outside. ‘A lead, a genuine, honest to God lead, Sal!’ He grabbed her by both elbows and swung her in a circle.
‘Steady on, boss,’ she said. ‘Shall we get a team out there?’
He let her go. ‘Let’s send Lizzie and Adam with a couple of uniforms to check it out first. I’ll let Oliver know, just in case we need armed response. I doubt Tana will be sitting there waiting to give herself up.’ He dashed off down the corridor.
Sally popped her head round the communications room door to see Bennett sitting alone. ‘Where’s the other flowerpot?’
‘Soon as we got a possible job for Kegan, he was off like a hare, chasing it up. I think we’ve hit gold here, Sal.’
‘Maybe, but we haven’t got enough out of him to charge him yet, the girls will need releasing or charging by tonight, and the boss has run off all excited. I’d like to get a bit more before we charge him on one count and then find another three charges we could have made. Just think it’s a bit previous to break out the champagne. This Tana has avoided us so far, I don’t think we should count our chickens, that’s all.’
Bennett made a sad cluck and waggled his elbows, earning him a thump. ‘Accessories to murder, I reckon,’ he said.
‘At least. Or, if the prosecution is so-minded, as murderers under Joint Enterprise.’
‘Blimey. That’s a tough one.’
‘But they knew what they were doing, didn’t they? There was intent to kill. They were all, as far as we can tell, present at both murders, no one appears to have been coerced. It’s not looking like accessory to me.’
‘Bloody shame for those kids: lives wrecked, for what?’
‘Kicks, drugs? Who knows? Young, but old enough to know what they were doing.’
Bennett shifted in his chair. ‘Boss is on his way back, you’d better get back in there.’
* * *
‘So, Jay, do you need anything? Drink, snack? Or are you okay to continue for a while longer?’
Jay Vine shrugged. ‘Nowhere to be, nothing to do.’
Dan moved closer and leaned across the table. ‘Why, Jay? Why did a clever bloke like you end up going along with all this? Could you not see where it might all end up?’
‘I … I can’t explain it really. Scarlett, she’s my girlfriend. Well, she was, and she got involved with Tana first, although we knew her as Kathy Kelly. It was a bit of fun, part of the course. We helped design the website, made up the rituals and the fire make-up that we wore. It was totally secret. Exciting, I guess, to see what we could achieve on social media. You wouldn’t believe how many followers we picked up in the first couple of weeks.’
‘I would, there were hundreds of thousands following her when we shut the sites down. So, when did you realise that you were going to be setting an actual man on fire? That it wasn’t just “a bit of fun”?’
Jay shook his head slowly. ‘At the first bonfire. We were sitting around, I was playing a few tunes. I never thought for a minute that Kegan would get an actual sacrifice. Then, along he comes with this old guy, rolling drunk. Kegan bashes him over the head …’ He took a gulp of air.
‘Go on, you’re doing really well,’ said Sally.
‘I … I helped him put the guy on the fire. I didn’t want to, but I did; so did Scarlett and Amber, we all helped,’ he said, his eyes full of tears, ‘only Tana didn’t help. She didn’t do anything except take the stupid pictures and video for the website.’ Tears spilled over onto his jumper.
‘What about the second murder? Same deal?’
‘No, it was worse, much worse. He was younger and fitter, and I don’t think Kegan hit him hard enough. He woke up in the fire, and the screams … I can’t get the screams out of my head.’
‘Okay, Jay. I think we should get you a solicitor now, just to make sure we are doing everything by the book. You’ve been absolutely brilliant. Thank you. We’ll leave you here for a short while, then, when the solicitor arrives, you can write out a full statement for us.’ He nodded at the PC on duty and took Sally outside.
‘I’m off up to see Oliver. Let his parents in as soon as they arrive, and see if the duty solicitor is on the way. Just want to agree the charges for all three of them.’ Dan absently patted Sally on the shoulder and shot off down the corridor.
Ben Bennett came out of the communications room with two thumbs up. ‘Back in to see the young ladies with all this extra information, I expect?’ he asked Sally.
‘Absolutely. Looks like the joint enterprise charge was engineered by this Tana woman. Make sure they were all involved, then no one would walk away unscathed, even if they wanted to.’
‘It’s one way to guarantee loyalty, I suppose.’
‘It’s bloody clever.’
‘Psychopaths often are,’ said Bennett, and whistled his way back to the office.
37
Dan sat in a chair opposite the two whiteboards, hands wrapped around his fifth coffee of the day. He could see the words and stare at the pictures, but he couldn’t read the story. On one hand, he had a naive professor and a bunch of students, charged and awaiting a visit to the magistrates’ court, and on the other? Nothing. There was a connection with MI5, and, he assumed, a Northern Irish slash IRA slant to the story. But why burnings? And why this girl, who was apparently working with this guy, Kegan? What would make her want to commit such terrible crimes against men who could hardly fight back? And, if it was about the Troubles, she would have been a young child when all that was happening. How could that be it? ‘Bill,’ he yelled across the MI room. ‘Anything on Kegan?’
‘No, boss. Narrowed down the gyms. I’ve got Jay and Amber doing photofit with Lizzie, hoping that might give us a likeness we can take round with us. Soon as I’ve got that, we’ll get out there.’
Dan grunted, took another slurp of coffee, realised it was cold, and dumped it on the table behind him. He slumped down and rested his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. Think, man. The room was quiet behind him, everybody engaged in writing up reports from the day. No, no, no, no. ‘I’ve forgotten to ask a really important question,’ he said, head coming up. ‘I forgot to ask if they know if there’s going to be a third murder. Idiot! Sack me now, someone.’
He ran from the room and clattered down the stairs to the holding cells. Lizzie sat with Jay Vine as he tried to settle on a likeness of Kegan from the thousands of types on the database. He was nodding at Lizzie as Dan asked to be let in.
‘Jay, what do you know about the third murder? Is it still on?’
Jay stared at him. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘Never mind. When will it be? Where?’ He rocked backwards onto his heels, aware that he sounded a bit wild. ‘Come on, think, what did she say?’
Jay thought, his eyes wide. ‘She brought it forward. It was supposed to be at the end of the month, but it’s on Saturday.’
‘Saturday? This coming Saturday?’
‘Yeah, that’s what she said. I’m sorry, I should have said something. I just …’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. We never knew until we had to build the fire, but it will be at a beach, somewhere local.’
Dan paced, one step out, one step back. There was no room to do more in the tiny cell. ‘Local. One she has already used?’
‘Don’t know. Probably not, in case of cops hanging about. There are plenty more.’
‘Right. Right, thanks,’ said Dan, and disappeared as quickly as he had come.
* * *
‘That was a bit of a whirlwind,’ said Lizzie as the door closed on the retreating figure. All her instincts were sending her running up the stairs after her boss, but she had to do this first. She reluctantly turned back to her photofit. ‘So, are you sure this is as close as you can get to a likeness?’
Jay nodded. ‘Big, muscular bloke, shaven head, bushy beard.’
Lizzie brought up the picture that Amber had settled on, they were similar enough for her to feel happy that it would do as an aide-memoire in a gym-to-gym search. ‘Okay, we’re getting somewhere,’ she said, ‘thanks. Right, let’s have another look at the photofit for Tana. Happy with this one?’
He was. But Lizzie thought it looked markedly different from Amber’s picture, and she hadn’t been in to see Scarlett or the professor yet. Tana could change her hair colour and clothes and look remarkably different. Jay saw her as incredible skinny, with pointed features like a witch. Amber, who was plump, saw Tana as slim and beautiful. That’s what made facial ID hard, and witnesses unreliable. Everything was filtered through their experiences.
‘You know, she has to choose a beach where there is easy access for the Land Rover,’ said Jay.
Lizzie stared at him. ‘Land Rover?’
‘That’s how we get the wood and brush to the site, then we unload it and build the fire.’
‘Do you know the type of Land Rover? Or the registration number?’
Jay shook his head. ‘Not really. Old red type. Like a bus, with seats along the sides, quite big.’
‘You’re a star, Jay,’ she said, ‘back soon,’ and followed her boss to the MI room as fast as she could.
* * *
She burst in as Dan was consulting a map of the area on the whiteboard. ‘Boss, he said something else,’ she said.
Dan turned, so did Bill Larcombe.
‘Kegan drives an old-type, red Land Rover, with seats along the inside.’
‘Great, more to work with. I wish we’d caught him a couple of days ago though. Bill, add it to your profile. That has to be a bit unusual in blokes working at gyms, surely. It’s not a typical vehicle, is it?’
‘And,’ continued Lizzie, ‘between him and Amber, I think we have a sort of likeness, although he could have changed his appearance by now – shaved his beard off, at least.’
She sent the picture from her tablet to the printer and waited for it to cough out of the tray. With Kegan’s picture on the board, under his name, Dan felt a surge of excitement. We can find this guy. Good old Lizzie, she always came up with the goods. ‘What about Tana? Any likeness for her?’
‘No, they have totally different ideas about what she looks like. I need to get face shape first, and they disagree on that. We know she’s thin, and currently has red hair, but that’s easy to disguise. I’ll need more time.’
‘Time, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Dan, calling the room to listen, ‘is what we don’t have. According to Jay Vine, the next murder is planned for this coming Saturday night, at a beach near you. We thought the third victim was Paddy, and he’s nice and safe somewhere. But what if we’re wrong? What if his involvement was purely to do with IRA activity in the nineties, and nothing to do with our case? What if the third victim is still out there? And going to be killed on Saturday night?
‘Come over, all of you. We need to plan. Bill, cadge as many bodies from Team One as you can. I know they’ve got work on, but I need them. And someone bring me more coffee. You’re on overtime from now on, cancel plans for this evening, and no sneaking off until we know what we’re doing. Ten minutes, please.’
While the team noisily finished what they were doing, Dan called and asked Oliver to join them. She was
good at this sort of stuff, and he was going to need her authority to pull in every spare body they could find if they were going to stop this next murder.
He stared at the map. A beach with access for a vehicle. Somewhere local. Not Exmouth or Dawlish: already used; not Budleigh: too exposed. As far over as Sidmouth? Again, too populated. Where?
Oliver took up her place next to Ben Bennett. ‘Are we making progress?’ she asked quietly, while the team assembled.
‘Of a sort,’ said Dan. ‘I think I’ve been complacent. I thought, as Paddy was in custody, there wouldn’t be a third victim, but I think we might be wrong. It’s on for Saturday.’
She stared at him, shaking her head. ‘Really? Two days? Is that all we’ve got to find this person?’
Dan was relieved when he was interrupted.
‘Sir?’
Sam Knowles stood behind Dan, eyes on the floor.
‘Yes, Sam?’
‘I’ve been going over every bit of CCTV I can find, from the dates we have, and I think I’ve found something.’ His voice was low, troubled.
What did I do to one of my best DCs? I frightened him when all he was doing was trying his best. Well done me. ‘Okay Sam, that’s great. Bring it up on the whiteboard so we can all have a look.’
Knowles did so. The typically grainy images from cheap CCTV had been enhanced and hardened up. It was easy, now Dan knew what to look for, to pick out the three students in Exmouth, and on the Dawlish holiday camp, but they were not who he was worried about.
Sam took up a laser pointer and waited until the chatter subsided. ‘I noticed this man. Can you see? He’s there, in all the videos, but he’s always on the edge. It was his clothes that made him stand out. Same homburg hat and overcoat at each location. Doesn’t have anything to do with the students, as far as I can tell. Also,’ he said quickly, before anyone interrupted, ‘now that we know Kegan’s vehicle is a Land Rover, here it is, passing along the prom at Exmouth.’
Death on the Coast Page 19