by Iain Cameron
He walked over to see Walters.
‘What was wrong with Houghton?’ she asked when he approached.
‘You heard him?’
‘I was walking past your office but I suspect everyone in the place heard him.’
‘Probably still pissed we’re pressing ahead with the case against Schofield, but your guess is as good as mine. How’s the hunt for the missing man?’
‘His phone and credit cards, which it’s safe to assume were still in his jacket when he skipped out, are being monitored, but he won’t get far once his picture is out there.’
‘I’m worried he makes a move before it happens.’
‘I think he would need to know a lot about how we operate for him to have the confidence to do that. Imagine the risk he would feel he was taking by just walking into Brighton Station or Gatwick. He would think everyone was looking at him.’
‘Yes, you’re right. He’s more likely holed up somewhere out of sight, but where?’
‘According to Trevor, he had a string of girlfriends. Perhaps one who didn’t get so annoyed by his womanising behaviour has put him up.’
‘Hold that thought,’ he said pulling out his ringing phone.
After the call, he looked at Walters. ‘Grab your coat, Carol, the SOCOs have found something.’
**
Henderson guided the car down Mallory Road and eased it into a space in the driveway of Khouri’s house beside the SOCO van. Taking more interest in his surroundings than he did earlier in the day when he was more focussed on capturing Khouri, he wondered how a house like this was ever approved by the Planning Department. The street was comprised of 1930s traditional houses: all red brick, sloping roofs, and multi-paned windows, and this one stuck out like a gold tooth in a mouth filled with white. It was more suited to the hills above Los Angeles than a street in strait-laced Hove.
They walked inside and looked around for one of the SOCO crew.
‘We’re up here, Angus,’ he heard someone call.
They climbed the stairs.
‘I hate stairs like this.’
‘Why? No carpets, or because of the open style?’
‘I don’t like tread with no risers and the way it sways like a boat. I always feel I’ll miss my footing and fall, and then there’s the obvious problem when wearing a skirt.’
‘Hi, Angus.’ Jim Urquhart of the SOCO team was standing at the top. ‘Come and I’ll show you what we’ve found.’
They walked into the main bedroom and into what looked like a wardrobe at the end of a long line of fitted units. Upon closer inspection, it was a walk-in area, more like a dressing room, but it didn’t contain anything connected to clothes.
Instead, pictures of Raymond Schofield adorned many of the walls. There were images cut from newspapers, photographs taken with a camera fitted with a telephoto lens, and other pictures and articles clipped from industry journals. It wasn’t just clippings; someone, presumably Khouri, had annotated many with spidery handwriting: ‘S in Brighton’, ‘S at Theatre’, ‘S walking the Dog’. Others contained more descriptive messages: ‘Smug bastard’, ‘The tosser’, ‘What a woman’, the latter in reference to Clare Mitchell, Schofield’s former partner.
The back wall was a little different: the pictures were of Martin Turner and Alex Vincent. Scrawled across Turner’s picture were the words Collateral Damage, and on Vincent’s, Kill Him, Knows too much.
‘My god, this is amazing,’ Walters said. ‘It must be the evidence Robinson was alluding to.’
‘Then he went all coy, saying he had the evidence but it was on his phone, which, by the way, SOCOs picked up at the house where he was being held. I reckon Robinson’s been here, either as a guest of Khouri or because he broke in. Maybe he’s friendlier with the guy than we first thought. Either way, I suspect we won’t hear the whole story until Khouri is caught.’
‘By which time Robinson will have his phone back and can show us what he’s got.’
‘Or sell the pictures to the press.’
‘I hope not. These sorts of shrines play out better in the public imagination than they do in a court room.’ Henderson spread an arm in an expansive gesture: ‘All this because Raymond Schofield dared to criticise him.’
‘Tried to ruin him, more like. If you think of Khouri’s humble beginnings in Syria, the death of his parents and being taken away from the place where he was born to live in a strange country with his uncle, I suppose he must have felt fiercely protective over what he had built: the business, the car, the house, his reputation.’
‘For sure, and remember that Schofield himself isn’t a nice man. Perhaps Khouri felt he would garner some sympathy by having a pop at him.’
‘Well, it worked, didn’t it?’ Walters said. ‘If you look at Twitter and Instagram – where everyone seems to have an opinion about their spat – even though people haven’t a good word to say about cosmetic surgeons in general, Khouri was quite popular while Schofield’s name was mud.’
‘Disputes like this one never have a happy ending. It tends to eat up one or both of the protagonists.’
‘Taking this place into account, it seems to have affected Khouri more than Schofield.’
‘I suppose to someone like Schofield, it would feel like just another business rival he needed to crush, while Khouri would feel it was his livelihood, his legacy that was being threatened.’
‘All this,’ Walters said, spreading her arms wide, ‘leaves me feeling a bit, I don’t know, disappointed.’
‘Why?’
‘Robinson made it sound like he had solid evidence against Khouri. I’m sure what he meant was this place, but it doesn’t do it for me. At most, it’ll make good interviewing material, and if we engage a clinical psychologist, a terrific insight into his thought processes, but I still don’t see his finger on the trigger.’
‘I was thinking much the same. He could easily claim this isn’t a contemporaneous account of events, but a glorified scrapbook compiled by someone with an unhealthy and overdeveloped interest in those events. A good brief will label him a twisted stalker, but not much else.’
‘Nevertheless, I sure would like to see his reaction when we show him the pictures.’
‘Angus, are you there?’ a deep voice asked.
‘Aye, I am.’
‘Come over here and take a look at this.’
He walked out of the dressing room and towards Dave Cheshunt, another member of the SOCO team, raking through Khouri’s wardrobe.
Cheshunt stood back and allowed Henderson to take his place. Wrapped in a t-shirt was a knife, beside it a Canterbury Clothing Company-inscribed woolly hat, and other items of dark clothing. The knife looked clean, but NIR, Near Infrared Spectroscopy, analysis would be able to detect any hidden blood spots. In fact, Henderson was sure he could see some flecks near the handle.
As usual, when faced with such a weapon, Henderson recalled the injuries inflicted on the murder victim: their width, depth, and the pathologist’s assessment of the blade used. Yes, this was a good fit for the one used to inflict wounds on Martin Turner. He moved out of the way, letting Walters move into his place.
‘You wanted firmer evidence,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve found it.’
FORTY-SIX
Early Saturday morning, Henderson went out for a long run. For a change, he headed east, past Brighton Marina and out towards the villages of Rottingdean and Saltdean. This was the most frustrating part of an investigation: waiting for something to happen. In this case, waiting for someone to locate Hassan Khouri. It made him feel helpless, unable to concentrate on anything else, and he used the run to dissipate some of his excess energy, otherwise he might be tempted to take some hasty action just to satisfy the urge to do something.
When he returned home, he showered, changed, ate a hearty breakfast, and then headed into the office. He had barely taken a seat and woken up his pc when Sally Graham arrived, breathless and obviously bearing some news.
A man fitting K
houri’s description was seen entering a house in the village of Plumpton. This perhaps provided an explanation as to how Khouri knew about the abandoned cottage where Trevor Robinson had been held captive, as it was situated only a few miles from the village.
Within the hour, a car with Henderson and DS Walters, plus a van containing an armed response unit following behind them, were speeding towards Plumpton. Since hearing the news, and while waiting for the raid party to assemble, he had dispatched two detectives to reconnoitre the property and they had spotted Khouri through a window.
They turned into Plumpton Lane, a long road running through the middle of the village. It was actually two villages. The smattering of houses they passed at the beginning of the lane were in Plumpton, while the railway station, the famous racecourse, and the house they were heading towards, were in Plumpton Green.
Before reaching the station, they pulled into the side of the road behind the Ford Mondeo containing Phil Bentley and Harry Wallop, the hastily-arranged surveillance team. Henderson got out of the car and walked over to talk to them.
Wallop opened the car door, got out, and stretched.
‘Hi Harry.’
‘Hi boss. Khouri’s ex is called Kay Winter, and she lives in a barn conversion, the wooden building you can see over there,’ he said, pointing over the hedgerow where Henderson could see the upper floors.
Looking over, Henderson saw what looked like a farmhouse and, about one hundred metres into the field on the right, the barn conversion.
‘How did you see him from here?’
‘We didn’t. We used the track over there,’ he said, indicating a gap in the hedge close to them. ‘It leads into that small wood over there and brings you out facing the front of the property.’
‘I think I would prefer to use that approach than to walk up the driveway. We’ll advance on the property after a couple of officers are positioned at the back to stop him escaping again.’
‘I agree. A full-blooded assault down the access road and he would be out of the house and across the fields at the back like a hare with a fox on its tail.’
Henderson nodded. He crossed the road and peered at the barn through the branches of the hedgerow. Even at this distance, he could see it had many large windows, and a glance up by any of the inhabitants inside and a full-blown assault would be exposed.
Henderson walked back across the road. ‘When we’re in position,’ he said to Wallop, ‘I’ll radio you. Move your car up to the farm access road and block it.’
‘Will do.’
Henderson turned to go.
‘Boss?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Better luck catching the bastard this time.’
‘Thanks Harry, we’ll need it.’
Henderson walked back to his car where Walters was talking to the armed response officers. He briefed them with the information Wallop had supplied, and a few minutes later they set off into the field. The track they were on was shielded from the farm and barn conversion by hedgerow, but in early spring the fields contained nothing but grass, while the briary branches of the hedgerow windbreak were devoid of their usual lush covering of leaves.
They weren’t exposed entirely as the barn was in a dip. Only someone in the upstairs rooms would have a decent view, but he suspected the small number of upstairs windows on this side was partly due to the amount of glass utilised on the ground floor, or perhaps there was a more agreeable outlook on the other side.
Standing inside what was no more than a small outcrop of trees, they had a decent view of the barn. He instructed two of the armed response officers to take positions at the rear of the building, and called Harry and instructed him to move his car and block the farm access road.
He allowed five minutes for the officers to reach their positions at the rear, before he ordered the team to move. There was no cover as the team sprinted across an open field.
Barn conversions to the DI looked flimsy, as if a big gust of wind would lift them up and drop them in a field fifty metres away, but there was nothing frail about the door. It was wide, made of solid oak and fitted with two deadlocks. It was a shame to damage such a fine and expensive fitment, but the door banger moved into position and two bangs later, they headed inside.
The heavily protected armed response officers checked the downstairs area, shouting ‘Clear!’ as they went. Seconds later, someone shouted, ‘In here!’
In the kitchen at the rear of the house it was obvious the occupants had been eating breakfast. Two places had been set: avocado on toast. Despite the uneaten food, the diners were no longer at the table. Khouri was standing at the back of the kitchen, a gun pointed at the head of his companion, Kay Winter.
‘Put the gun down, Hassan,’ Henderson said in a stern but calm voice. ‘You are outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded.’
‘No way. I’ve done some bad things…I’m capable of doing more. It’s you who should be worried, not me.’
‘Take a look around. Look outside and you’ll see more armed officers. Put the gun down, Hassan; you don’t want to kill Ms Winter, do you?’
At the mention of her name, her previously stoic face crumpled.
‘Please don’t let him kill me? I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m only thirty-three, I haven’t done anything with my life yet.’
‘Shut up, Kay!’ Khouri hissed.
‘Keep calm, Ms Winter. He’s not going to kill you, are you, Hassan?’
‘I will, unless you lot back off.’
‘Let me make one thing clear. We’re not going anywhere. You’re the one who needs to give way, not us.’
It was a difficult situation. Khouri was in a corner with no means of escape. A desperate man was capable of doing desperate things.
His only way out was the back door leading into the garden. A man in such a hopeless position only had two options: he could either give up, or try to shoot his way out. If choosing the latter he would die in the process, as the moment he pointed his weapon at any of the officers, he would be shot.
‘Hassan,’ Henderson said, ‘I’ll ask you again, put the gun down.’
‘No, no way.’
‘Why did you kill Martin Turner?’
‘How do you know it was me? I wasn’t there. You’ve got nothing on me.’
‘We’ve been to your house–’
‘What? You bastards have been inside my beautiful house? Your dirty boots all over the carpet, your people rummaging through my things.’
All the time he spoke, the gun hand trembled as if he was going through some emotional turmoil. His poor hostage, whose legs had clearly turned to jelly, would be fearful he would pull the trigger, either accidentally or during this fit of rage.
‘Let me go,’ Winter said, struggling.
He was holding her by a handful of her long hair, the gun pointed at the side of her head. He yanked her hair with such force Henderson’s fleeting thought about this perhaps being a set-up were dispelled.
‘Argh!’ she screeched. ‘Khouri, you’re an evil bastard!’
Khouri and Winter slowly stepped backwards.
‘Where are you going?’ Henderson asked.
‘Move out of my fucking way.’
Henderson glanced at the senior ARU officer, Dave Fallon, indicating he should move back.
The strange dance made its way to the back door.
‘Turn the key and open the door,’ Khouri said to Winter. He eased her to one side so she could reach.
‘No funny moves,’ he said to Henderson, ‘or she gets it, understand?’
‘Okay.’
When the door was open fully behind them, Khouri and Winter edged towards Henderson and the ARU officers. Henderson was tempted to grab Winter when the gunman’s attention was distracted by the door, but he feared Khouri would open fire in panic.
‘Tell the guys you’ve positioned at the back of the house to show themselves.’
Henderson hesitated.
‘Now!’
He nodded at Dave Fallon, who called them. Khouri then instructed them to stand away from the door. Khouri made his way outside and stepped away from the door. He turned and faced the two ARU officers, Winter in front of him, and instructed, ‘Get in the house and close the door.’
They did as they were told. As soon as the door was shut, Khouri let go of Kay, stepped forward and locked it. Damn! Henderson hadn’t noticed him removing the key, as the bodies of the surgeon and his hostage had blocked his view. Henderson watched from the window as Khouri, ignoring the shaking Kay Winter, set off at a pace down the back garden.
FORTY-SEVEN
When Khouri started running, Henderson barked orders to those in the kitchen before sprinting through the damaged and open front door, Walters behind him. A copper was assigned to deal with the traumatised hostage, and the rest of the team were scrambling back to their van.
He ran round the barn and entered the garden, running to the end as Khouri had done. He climbed the fence marking the border between Winter’s property and the large field beyond. In the distance, nearing the end of the field, he saw Khouri. The surgeon looked comfortable running; he had an elegant, long-legged stride and appeared to be someone who often ran long distances over rough ground. Every now and again he glanced over his shoulder.
Henderson had already been out for a run this morning, so the additional distance didn’t bother him too much, although he knew he would soon tire if it went on for any length of time. Without looking back, he knew Walters would be far behind. Even though Henderson wasn’t shod in running shoes, he could still run at a reasonable pace in the ones he was wearing. Walters, on the other hand, was equipped for no more than a sprint along a Brighton pavement, not for a trek over a bumpy field.
To his surprise, Khouri seemed to dip down and disappear as if he had just jumped into a ditch. It was only when he got closer, and heard the sound of a train, that he realised Khouri had reached the culvert of the train tracks leading into Plumpton Station, now over to his left. A concern flagged in Henderson’s mind: if the train tracks were sealed by a high fence, to stop local kids playing there, Khouri would have the choice of going either left or right. Henderson hoped when he got there, the fleeing man’s direction of travel would be obvious.