The Anglesey Murders Box Set

by Conrad Jones

  ‘You can let go. We’ve got her, thank you,’ the brother said, lifting her. She pulled away from him. The crowd swallowed her. He waited until she’d gone from view and then moved away. As the lifeboatmen put the body into the hospital van, the tarp fell from the body. A dozen cameras captured the eyeless corpse. It was the image that would be on the front page of every red-top the next day. His emotions had never been so deep. This experience had been pure rapture. It was the best day of his life so far.

  CHAPTER 46

  Owen was pleased. Daisy had slotted right in as he knew he would. He was a good mechanic. There was no messing around with him. He got on with the job and had a nice manner about him. He was fun to be around too. With the extra pair of hands, he could take on the extra business and make a decent margin, especially as the new mechanic was being paid for. His mood had changed for the better, even the wife and kids had noticed.

  Tony had been to pick up the Golf and Owen had already lined up a buyer for the alloys who was happy to pay eight hundred for them. That was more than he’d earned the month before after all his outgoings. He could see pound signs flashing before his eyes. This was a situation he had to milk for as long as it lasted. There had been no mention of Jamie Hollins. Daisy didn’t mention him or the arrangement, which suited Owen.

  Later in the afternoon, two sets of wheels were delivered by courier, ready to be swapped. He stacked them on racks next to the ramp where Daisy had set himself up to work. They were nice alloys and he couldn’t see anything shady about them. He decided to stop worrying about it. It had been a long time since he could think about taking his wife and kids out for a meal and he was going to surprise them this Sunday. If things went to plan, he wouldn’t have to think about being able to spoil them again. Wasn’t that what running your own business was all about? Of course, it was.

  The phone rang. Owen answered it. It was the business manager of the taxi company in Bangor. He wanted to project his profit and loss accounts for the next twelve months and booked the entire fleet in for servicing, staggering the bookings over the year. Owen made a quick mental note that it would equate to about three-grand a month with a fifty-per cent profit margin. He wanted to jump up and down and punch the air but resisted the temptation. So far, Jamie had delivered on his promises. Maybe getting into bed with a drug dealer wasn’t such a bad thing.

  CHAPTER 47

  Simon Brady and Kerry Leach walked to their vehicle in silence. They both felt completely deflated. Tudor Owen had called their bluff and they’d been forced to fold their hand. Glen Price was up to his neck in something which linked them all to an incident six years prior but without evidence, they were speculating. Any good solicitor could run rings around speculation. They were stuffed without something solid to challenge him with. As they reached the car, Simon tossed Kerry the keys.

  ‘You can drive,’ he said. ‘I want to make a few calls on the way back to the island. We need a chat with Derek Kio. I think he’ll be more forthcoming than Price about what happened at the factory, especially as he thinks he was stitched up. If he thinks he can shift the blame or tarnish their squeaky-clean reputations, he will spill his guts.’

  ‘What about Barry Trent? Do you think he’ll talk to us?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. He might relish the chance to tell us his version of what happened.’

  Kerry opened the Nissan and climbed inside. She glanced in the mirror and saw a tired face looking back at her. Her roots needed dying. She had the dye in the bathroom cabinet but simply hadn’t had the time to do it. Work and sleep always took her time. The knot in her stomach told her she wouldn’t be doing it anytime soon. Her roots were bottom of the priority list. Simon made a series of calls. There was a lot of effing and blinding going on, before, during, and after each call. It sounded like he was getting the run-around and he was losing his temper. Kerry had enquired about Kio herself only days before and was informed he was doing a long stint for armed robbery. Simon came off the phone and banged his fist on the dashboard.

  ‘What is it?’ Kerry asked. She glanced sideways. His face was like thunder. ‘Come on, don’t keep it to yourself.’

  ‘That makes us look like bloody idiots,’ he muttered.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘Kio was released from HMP Wakefield ten days ago,’ Simon said.

  ‘What?’ Kerry sighed. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘He was doing a long stretch for armed robbery. How has he managed that?’

  ‘His case fell to bits on appeal. Two of the key witnesses failed to show up and another one changed their statement. He walked free from the court.’

  ‘So, he was out when the calls were made to Price and more to the point, when Kelvin Adams was murdered.’

  ‘Yes. That changes things dramatically. We’ve gone from having nothing to having a motive and a suspect.’

  ‘What’s the next step?’ Kerry asked.

  ‘We let Glen Price sweat and track down Derek Kio. We need to bring Barry Trent in and rattle his cage, see what he’s got to say. That will be interesting. At least we’ve got something to go at. The DI will be made up.’

  ‘Are you going to ring him and tell him?’

  ‘No. We’ll be there in half an hour if you put your foot down,’ he said, looking out of the window. Kerry glanced at him and accelerated. At last she felt like they were getting somewhere.

  CHAPTER 48

  Alan Williams was listening to Pamela Stone updating him on the forensic results which had been returned. He had her on speaker phone. Kim and a bunch of other detectives were sitting in a semicircle around his desk, listening intently.

  ‘The interesting results are from his hands,’ she said. ‘Kelvin Adams had traces of soil and moss beneath his fingernails. More than you would expect there to be if he had crawled away from the killer at some point.’

  ‘What does that tell you?’ Alan asked.

  ‘On its own, not much but he had a wood splinter in the palm of his right hand. The wood was polished and treated on one side, rough on the other. I think it’s from a spade handle. When you combine the two things, I think he’d been digging.’

  ‘Digging?’ Kim asked. ‘Digging what?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, unfortunately but I can tell you that this particular type of moss only grows on rock and it needs salt to survive. It doesn’t grow anywhere inland. I’ve researched it and it’s rarely found more than twenty meters from the sea. Whatever he was digging, it’s close to the cliffs.’

  ‘It explains what he was doing on the range and why his waterproofs were soaked but what was he digging for?’ Alan asked.

  ‘I might be able to shed some light on that too,’ Pamela said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When I swabbed the palms of his hand, I found traces of urea, lactate, and acidic residue.’

  ‘Which is what?’ Alan asked frowning.

  ‘It’s what I would expect to find on a twenty-pound note,’ Pamela said. ‘I think he’d been handling money. A lot of it. It was engrained in his skin.’

  ‘So, Kelvin Adams was digging and handled money,’ Kim said. ‘Was he burying money or digging it up?’

  ‘He goes to the same place every month,’ Alan said.

  ‘They could have a stash there which they access monthly to avoid having to answer any embarrassing questions about where their cash has come from?’ Kim speculated.

  ‘I agree. He’s digging it up. We need to search the range along the cliff line,’ Alan said. ‘I know St Asaph have ground penetrating radar equipment and officers trained to use it. Get on the blower and ask them if we can borrow their search team.’ A detective moved away to organise the search. ‘What else have we got, Pamela?’

  ‘His body and his car were clean for drugs. All the tests were negative.’ Simon and Kerry entered the incident room. Alan beckoned them over. ‘My initial look at Brian Hindley tells us he was stabbed with a long weapon, sharp one side, jagg
ed the other. There are four wounds to the abdomen, three to the back, and the eyes were removed. His lungs are full of water, so he was alive when he was put into the sea.’

  ‘Does the weapon match the Zak Edwards murder?’ Alan asked the question everyone wanted to ask.

  ‘Yes. My initial findings make them a match.’

  ‘How far would go?’ Alan said. ‘Was it the same weapon?’

  ‘I would say yes.’ Pamela paused. She seemed reluctant to continue.

  ‘Is there something else?’

  ‘Yes. The stab pattern matches Peter Moore’s fourth victim.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Alan muttered. ‘Is there anything on his body that will help us?’

  ‘He’s been in the water a long time but we’ve recovered trace beneath his nails and black fibres on his fingers. It’s too early for me to say what they are at this stage. If, anything else comes in, I’ll ring you.’

  ‘Thanks, Pamela,’ Alan said, ending the call. The team remained quiet, mulling over the information. ‘First things first. If Kelvin Adams was digging up money, that’s our motive to murder. What we need to work out, is who knew he was going there to dig it up?’

  ‘I think we might know the answer to that question, guv,’ Kerry said.

  ‘Good,’ Alan said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘Glen Price received a number of calls last week from a man who worked at the factory at the same time as Adams, Price, and Brent. He’s a convicted villain we thought was doing a fifteen year stretch for armed robbery,’ Kerry explained. ‘It turns out, his case was overturned on appeal and he was freed, ten days ago.’

  ‘And who is he?’

  ‘His name is Derek Kio. He worked at the car factory six years ago when the place was raided for drugs. He was found with two kilos in his locker and was sent down for four years but he always claimed the drugs had been planted on him. He implicated Barry Trent as the financer. Trent, Adams, and Price were all interviewed several times but there was no further action against them.’

  ‘So, Kio has form for violence?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Yes. Price told us Kio phoned him and threatened to kill him and his wife unless they came up with sixty thousand pounds.’

  ‘That’s an odd amount,’ Alan said, frowning.

  ‘We thought the same. Price’s phone records show a flurry of calls he made after each call from Kio. He called Adams and Brent immediately afterwards.’

  ‘To sum it up, we’ve got four men implicated in possession to supply. Brent was evasive. Adams is dead, Price isn’t talking, and Kio is free and making threats,’ Simon said.

  ‘My money is on Kio following Adams, seeing him digging up cash and taking the opportunity to rob him,’ Kim said. Simon frowned. ‘Sorry, you didn’t hear the forensics earlier. Pamela Stone called before you walked in. She thinks Adams had been digging near the cliffs and that he’d been handling money.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s get a warrant for Price and Brent. We’ll interview them under caution. Find out where Derek Kio is now. Merseyside will have a handle on him. Ask them to pick him up and we’ll transport him to St Asaph,’ Alan said.

  ‘On what charge?’ Kerry asked.

  ‘Suspicion of murder,’ Alan said. ‘There’s no point in beating around the bush. Good work you two,’ he said to Simon and Kerry. ‘I’ll let you arrange the arrests and run with the interviews. Once we pick up Kio, let me know.’ He sat back in his chair and sighed. ‘Okay. You’ve all had chance to think about what Pamela told us about Brian Hindley. What are your thoughts?’

  ‘We’ve got a nutcase running around the island who thinks he’s Peter Moore,’ Kim said. She shrugged. ‘If we keep the facts that the stab patterns are the same as Moore’s victims quiet, maybe the press won’t make the link.’

  ‘We need to keep a lid on it for as long as possible. At least we can legitimately separate the cases now. If Kerry and Simon concentrate on the Adams case, Alice’s team can focus on this.’ Alan stood up and leaned on his chair. The phone rang and Kim answered it. She chatted to the caller, excitedly, picked up a pen and scribbled some notes on her pad. Alan waited for her to hang up. ‘You look like that was good news,’ he said.

  ‘That was the owner of a chocolate Labrador. She saw the appeal on Facebook.’

  ‘Was she at Penrhos?’

  ‘Yes. She’s the woman the other witnesses mentioned. She said there was one car parked there when she left and the last person she saw entering the nature reserve was a tall man dressed in black. She thought he might have been in uniform. He’s early thirties, has dark hair, shiny black shoes, and a long black overcoat. He said hello to her. She doesn’t know why but she had the impression he was a policeman.’

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Derek Kio downed his vodka and sipped his pint. He’d been drinking chasers since opening time. Being released from prison had been an unexpected bonus although, on this occasion, freedom came with a whole raft of danger. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a feeling the prosecution witnesses had been tampered with by someone on the outside. It certainly wasn’t his doing. Derek didn’t have the reach to threaten anyone from inside. He’d been a small fish in a big pond on the outside, on the inside, he was a tadpole. It had come as a shock how fragile his position was when he’d been arrested with two kilos in his locker. The support he’d been promised from his associates was non-existent. They ran for the hills at the first sign of a policeman and pretended they hardly knew him. He had less importance than the dirt on the factory floor. They’d cut him loose and let him hang for it. Not one single member of the outfit tried to communicate with him or help him in any way, shape, or form. Not even a text message. When he went down, he thought they would support him inside and look after his family on the outside but they did nothing. His wife struggled to feed their kids and pay the bills. Her family helped out, reluctantly and they revelled in telling her, ‘we told you so’, at every opportunity. After years of struggle, the strain was too much and she buggered off with another man, taking his kids with her. He had no idea where she was or how his kids were.

  That was down to Barry Trent, Kelvin Adams, and that snake, Glen Price. Price had always looked down his nose at him, even when he was selling thousands of pounds worth of gear for them. He pretended he didn’t even recognise Derek on the odd occasion he ventured onto the shop floor. The bloke was a first class tosser. Derek never trusted him. The other two had seemed okay but he’d misread them all. Backstabbing bastards, the lot of them. They would pay him what was owed to him, every penny. He vowed when he got out, they would pay and he meant to fulfil that promise.

  The problem was, he’d been the go between. He was the man at the coalface, grafting, taking the risk, selling kilos of white powder to the workforce. They bankrolled it all. He sourced the cocaine and maintained the supply, which was harder than it sounds. Maintaining a quality product was difficult. Dealers came and went like the wind. It was a dangerous career and a short one for many of them. The threat of being arrested or worse, succumbing to rivals was ever present. One month, the coke was perfect, the next it was cut to nothing.

  It was Derek who had taken all the risks and it was Derek who had taken the fall and it would be Derek who squared things off. It was time to straighten things out. Price had stopped answering his calls but he couldn’t avoid him forever. He needed to keep a low profile but he would knock on his door if he had to. They owed him and he was going to collect. Derek ordered another double and knocked it back in one gulp. It nearly came back up. He gagged and covered his mouth with his hand.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to be sick, mate,’ the barman said. He was a brute with a nose that looked like he’d been hit in the face with a spade. ‘I think you’ve had enough, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough,’ Derek said. He glared at the barman, projecting the image of a tough guy. He was far from it but most people avoided conflict if possible. ‘I’ll have another double vodka.’

 
‘Leave while you’ve got the chance to walk out,’ the barman said, smiling. ‘Or we’ll carry you out.’

  The men drinking at the bar put their pints down and stared at him. Derek realised he was in a local pub full of regular drinkers. Even if he could fight, he wouldn’t win this one. He finished his pint and put the glass down, then turned for the door. Someone at the bar called him a wanker but he ignored the jibe. He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the pavement. The sun was shining, and the sky was blue. He breathed in deeply, enjoying his freedom. He felt a thump in his chest. It was like being hit by a sledgehammer. Gunshots rang out and he felt three more bullets slamming into his body. His eyes widened as he realised what was happening. A fifth bullet took off the side of his skull, spraying the pub window with pinkish goo. Derek was dead before he hit the pavement.

  CHAPTER 49

  Jamie Hollins was sitting in the lounge bar of the South Stack pub. The lounge was closed to the public when he was using it. He couldn’t be bothered with the local piss-heads mithering him with their inane bullshit. He was waiting for Tony to return from a fact-finding mission. Rumours of a massive team of detectives crawling all over town were rife. Holly was hovering between the lounge and the bar, trying to keep the punters happy. Most of them were pissed and trying to get into her pants but none of them had a chance. She was far too sharp to let any of the locals within touching distance of her. Jamie respected her for that. She was a diamond despite her being a nuisance sometimes. She caught him staring at her and stuck her tongue out.