The Bodies at Westgrave Hall

by Nick Louth

  ‘If it was a crime to be a tosser we’d have him bang to rights,’ Gillard said, shaking his head.

  ‘There’s more,’ Townsend said, swiping to the other image. This one showed him standing on a landing stage by a boat, a bikini-clad model on either side kissing him on the cheek while he brandished an assault rifle.

  ‘Did you bring me this just to annoy me?’ Gillard asked. ‘Examples of self-indulgence for those with unlimited money.’ He was already aware that Oleg Volkov was an online influencer, a rising Russian rap star and had several million followers across his various social media platforms. He even had his own logo, a silver O over a golden V on a black background, which appeared on his signature aftershave, sunglasses and baseball caps.

  ‘I think it’s the fact he is a gun enthusiast,’ Townsend said. ‘There are hundreds of pictures of him toting weapons.’

  ‘There is a snag.’ Gillard picked up a thick manila folder and waved it at Townsend. ‘These are all the witness statements. Oleg Volkov was seen on the balcony of his room and in the ballroom in the hour before his father was killed. I don’t think we have anyone who witnessed him cross the bridge between the house and the library. So he has an alibi.’

  ‘I still think we should investigate him.’

  ‘Agreed. As a presumed beneficiary from his father’s death, he’s definitely on the list for interview, just not at the top. Keep researching, see what else you can find. Have you got anything else on the mobile phones I asked you to look at?’

  ‘Not much,’ Townsend replied. ‘The service providers are a bit slow, this being Christmas Day and all. From what we’ve got back so far, the networks light up like a Christmas tree soon after the shootings. Thousands of calls, hundreds of phones. Obviously people spreading the news.’

  ‘Can we narrow any down to within the library?’

  ‘Where we have the phone, yes.’

  Gillard shrugged. ‘Well obviously. The phones belonging to Sophie Cawkwell, Maxim Talin and Alexander Volkov would naturally confirm they were there. I was just thinking about the GPS on any further phones. If we could find evidence that a different phone, that does not belong to any of the victims or to Ms Yalinsky, was moving around within the library at the time the shooting took place, it’s almost as good as finding the gun, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I’m not sure it’s technically possible to start with a GPS location and find out who was in it.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because the satellite transponder doesn’t receive or store data from the phone, it only sends it. The phone’s GPS chip picks up and stores the encoded location from the satellite signal within the device. Apps that use GPS send the data to and from the phone via the cell tower in an encrypted form, only decoded by the device at the other end, like Google Maps and so on.’

  ‘All right, keep trying anyway,’ Gillard said grumpily.

  ‘I’m trying to get a tower dump,’ Townsend said. ‘It’s a list of all the devices that were in the vicinity from an hour before to an hour after the shooting. That could certainly help.’

  ‘Okay, thank you,’ Gillard said. He pulled up Oleg’s Instagram page on his own phone, and flicked through. There were plenty more pictures of scantily-clad women fawning over him while he was on a yacht somewhere sunny, in a nightclub in Tel Aviv, on the beach in LA. Gillard found himself increasingly irritated by this self-styled celebrity, his feelings tinged with pangs of envy. The page had music videos galore, which Gillard didn’t bother looking at, plus videos of Oleg and American-accented friends using an automatic weapon at a firing range in a desert somewhere. Oleg’s Hummer was in many of the pics. The golden pistol made a couple of reappearances too, once in the desert firing range, which proved it wasn’t simply a replica, and another with him leaning out of the Humvee with a historic building in the background.

  Gillard recognised it. Westgrave Hall.

  Gotcha! So Volkov had a weapon in the UK. Gillard rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. If that weapon was not registered and licensed, he would come down on Oleg Volkov like a ton of bricks.

  Assuming he was still in the country.

  A phone call from Hoskins interrupted him. ‘Sir, I’m still in the control room. I’ve been through all six external cameras like you said. I’ve concentrated so far on the hours after the shooting. The only people who exited the building did so through the main entrance: Dr Sophie Cawkwell, Wolf and our own PC Butterfield, and then later on the various CSI officers and ourselves. Everybody was captured on the two cameras covering the door. The other four wide-angle cameras on the corners of the building only captured one person at the far-reach of the angle in all that time, and that was you when you walked around in the small hours.’

  ‘That’s disappointing news.’

  ‘I’ve only skimmed the hours leading up to the shooting on fast-forward so far. A few people, mainly staff, came in and out in the afternoon until the library was locked at six. Later, once the party began there were far more people around but apart from Volkov’s private tour, at eleven p.m., no one went in.’

  Gillard sighed heavily. ‘I don’t get it, Carl. Someone got in there, someone fired thirty-odd shots, killing three people, including a professional bodyguard, and got out again with the murder weapon. Unless he’s invisible and can fly, or can burrow in from underneath, he must be on camera.’

  ‘I wish I knew, sir. I’m planning now to go through the earlier footage from the two door cameras and count everybody in and out.’

  ‘All right. Good work. I’m going to check out the cameras from the outside.’ His worst fears were coming to pass. A killer this professional must have Kremlin paymaster stamped all over him. And based on previous British experience, they would never get him. He’d take it very personally, if that were the case.

  * * *

  Gillard had got used to following the labyrinthine corridors in the lower part of Westgrave Hall, and soon got himself out through the main east exit, which led down through the terraces and on towards the library.

  He realised he must have walked miles that day, back and forth to the library from the main house, and several trips down to the main gate, past the sizeable gaggle of reporters with their satellite vans and outside broadcast units, and across the road to the village hall where most of the police vehicles were now parked. Logistically, the operation had gone well; a good few of the guest bedrooms had now been searched, and the police operation was running like a well-oiled machine. What he desperately needed was a breakthrough: CCTV, footprints, fingerprints, DNA; he didn’t care what type of evidence it was, he just needed to find out how someone had got into that library and committed these audacious murders.

  By the time he got to the footpath encircling the library and its shallow ditch, he could see that the snow had almost melted away everywhere. Only in the long grass at the bottom of the moat and in the long winter shadow of the library did the white patches persist. He took his time, walking through the grey slush on the outside footpath beyond the moat, and then over the bridge to the flagstoned terrace which ran around the library. The cameras were at a good height, twelve feet off the ground, and he could see that their coverage overlapped. There were not as far as he could make out any blind spots, which was exactly as it should be. If anyone had come into or out of that building, they should have been seen. Hoskins had already carefully checked the master log on the main system, which showed that there had been no editing or substitution of footage. If Wolf were in on the killing, it might have been possible for the cameras to have been nobbled, but that still wouldn’t account for the unanimity of the witness evidence and the undisturbed blanket of snow. No one had been in or out.

  It just wasn’t possible.

  Or was it? He considered something from his exchange with Hoskins.

  Burrow in from underneath. Was there a secret route into the library from the hall?

  * * *

  Having finished Sophie’s room, PC Jim Mur
ray looked down his list, and the attached map. ‘Volkov kids, Anastasia and Oleg, second floor,’ he said. The three officers trooped upstairs, where the corridors became a little less grandiose and somewhat narrower. They plodded along the carpet, peering out at the view over the steeply gabled rooftops.

  ‘It’s just like Dracula’s castle,’ Perrin said.

  ‘Not really,’ Livermore said, pernickety as always. ‘And that was in Transylvania.’

  Perrin groaned to himself. He really wished he had been teamed up with someone a bit more fun than Livermore. Then he could have pocketed Dr Sophie Cawkwell’s undies without worrying about being dobbed in for it. It would have given him tremendous bragging rights down the pub.

  ‘Right, this is it,’ Murray said. ‘Oleg Volkov.’ He looked through the keys that Wolf had given him, found the label with the corresponding number and unlocked it. The door would not open.

  ‘There’s another lock, Jim, knee height,’ said Livermore.

  PC Murray looked down at the brass plate. ‘Bugger, this is a security lock. No one told us about this.’

  ‘There’s one on the other door too,’ Livermore said.

  ‘That’s the daughter’s room,’ Murray said.

  ‘The door’s big but pretty old,’ Perrin said. ‘Couple of kicks would have us in.’ He was quite anxious to see inside Anastasia’s room, after what had reputedly happened to Simon Woodbridge in there. If it was true. Knowing Simon, he doubted it.

  ‘Don’t you ever listen, Constable Perrin?’ Murray said. ‘No damage to be inflicted.’

  ‘Better ring up that head of security,’ Livermore said.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Murray said. ‘Bryn Howell’s room is just down here. We probably should have done that first anyway.’

  Murray led them on round a dog-leg in the corridor, and through a fire door into a much smaller passageway. There was lino on the floor and the walls were lined with faded woodchip wallpaper.

  ‘This is a bit grotty,’ Perrin said.

  ‘Yeah, you would do well to remember that if you ever leave the force to join private security,’ Murray said. ‘You may be there to take a bullet for the boss, but the conditions are often crap. My brother-in-law told me all about it. He’s a personal protection officer for a former Northern Ireland secretary, so he’s all right, but a lot of his mates aren’t.’

  He found the key and unlocked the room. It was a dreary garret with a sloping ceiling and only a small window at knee height.

  ‘Former member of the SAS, Howell was,’ Murray said, looking at the dark and miserable room with its faded green walls, tidy single bed and MFI self-assembly furniture. There was a washbasin, a small mirror above and no apparent en suite. An ironing board stood in the middle of the room, a steam iron upright but unplugged on the heatpad, two pairs of formal trousers neatly pressed and folded nearby. ‘Tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Top of the class in pistol marksmanship, according to my brother-in-law. He was shocked to hear of his death.’

  ‘And he lived like this,’ Livermore said.

  ‘Yeah. Wife and two kids back in Wales, that he hardly ever saw. Poor bastard.’

  They all stood staring into the room for a moment or two before Perrin walked in and up to the washbasin. ‘This must be the family, then,’ he said picking a framed photograph from the wall. It was a smiling selfie of the craggy-jawed Howell with a pretty, dark-haired woman and two grinning children, all squeezed together in a giant embrace.

  ‘Oi, Perrin, we’re supposed to video this first,’ Murray said.

  Perrin replaced the photograph, then said, ‘Hello, hello, what’s this then?’ He picked up a metal waste bin and offered it to his colleagues.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Murray asked.

  ‘Letters, piles of ’em, all ripped up.’ He picked up a sheaf of fragments and started reading. ‘Listen to this.’ He read it out in a little sing-song voice. ‘“My darling Bryn, I will love you for ever. What we have is special. Don’t have doubts about us”. There’s loads of little hearts scribbled over it, and a big lipstick kiss.’ He waved the bin under Murray’s nose.

  ‘You’d make a good tabloid journalist,’ Murray said, and his expression showed he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  ‘You’re appalling,’ Livermore said to Perrin. ‘The guy died trying to save the life of his employer.’

  Perrin’s face creased in puzzlement. ‘Look, guys. This is a murder investigation, right?’

  ‘He was a victim, dimbo, not the perpetrator,’ Livermore said.

  ‘So? Bryn Howell was married,’ Perrin said.

  ‘Maybe they’re from his wife,’ Livermore said.

  ‘Nah, I’m married, mate, you’re not. Wives don’t send love letters like this. Not after the first year, anyway.’

  ‘Cynic,’ muttered Murray. He was twenty years married, but secretly agreed with every word.

  ‘He obviously had something going on here,’ Perrin said. ‘His room’s only just round the corner from Volkov’s daughter.’

  ‘You cannot possibly be suggesting…’ Livermore said, shaking his head.

  ‘Motives, right? Conflict of interest. Who knows?’ Perrin replied.

  ‘Right,’ said Murray. ‘Put that bin back, Perrin, and get out here so I can do the video.’

  Perrin complied, and watched as Murray used his camera to take a panoramic view of the room.

  ‘Are you going to bag the letters then, Jim?’ Perrin asked.

  ‘The man is dead. Why put his wife through that pain?’ Murray said. ‘I don’t want to log it.’

  ‘It’s up to Gillard, though. He’s SIO. You’ve got to let him know.’

  Murray held up his hands ‘All right. I’ll have a word. Stick them in an evidence bag. I don’t want it on the evidence computer. You can’t control who gets to see them. It’s not fair on his memory.’

  * * *

  Vikram Singh was quite pleased with the job he had done organising the evidence in the long-wheelbase Transit van. He had rigged up eight rows of shelves running the entire length of the vehicle, and had bagged up shoes, clothing, bullets and cartridge cases from the library, as well as the more interesting of the thousands of items which had been photographed in the main Westgrave Hall building. Hundreds of phones and electronic items had been logged and the most important few dozen sent out for analysis. He concentrated most of his time on what had been found in the library building where the shooting took place. Almost everything that had been found there fitted neatly into the various categories he had set up. Maxim Talin’s spectacles, for example, had broken and fallen to the ground floor, although not necessarily in that order. There were a few cigarette ends, again from the ground floor, parcelled up individually and sent away for DNA analysis. There were also a few oddments, basically sweepings from the ground floor, which he was keeping in a tray until he figured out what to do with them. These included a Russian branded chewing gum wrapper, a pencil, a brooch of an owl with tiny yellow gems for eyes, and some fragments of thin grey plastic, including one with a tiny metal bolt and retaining screw through it. There was also a human tooth.

  The arrival of Detective Constable Carl Hoskins broke his reverie.

  ‘How’s it going, Vikram?’ Though Singh was senior to Hoskins, the two had enjoyed a good friendship ever since attending the same forensic training course in Manchester. They had spent every evening down the pub, it being a revelation to Hoskins that Punjabi Sikhs were often enthusiastic drinkers. Hoskins reckoned Singh must be the only Sikh chair of a regional branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.

  ‘Not so bad.’

  ‘Fancy an early tea?’ Hoskins looked at his watch; it was nearly five p.m. ‘Tatiana in the kitchen is cooking up a big pheasant stew, if you’re interested.’

  ‘You didn’t waste any time there, did you?’ Singh said.

  Hoskins laughed. ‘She enjoys feeding me up.’

  ‘That makes two of you, then.’ He offered Hoskins the tray
of evidential oddments. ‘What do you reckon to this lot?’

  ‘Is that a tooth?’ Hoskins said, donning a latex glove so he could give it a prod. ‘Where was it found?’

  ‘This lot was found on the ground floor. The brooch is intriguing.’

  ‘Maybe it came off Yelena’s coat. Looks valuable enough.’

  ‘Any idea about the bits of plastic?’ Singh held up one of the thin fragments to him.

  ‘It’s obviously been smashed, whatever it is. Maybe something Talin or Volkov were holding, or maybe something on the bookshelves. Knocked off in the chaos and dropped down onto the ground floor.’

  ‘Okay, but where’s the rest of it? Put these bits together, and you get something about the size of my thumb, and there’s still bits missing. If it didn’t have that tiny bolt, I’d say it was one of those little plastic ice cream spoons you get for tubs in the cinema.’

  Hoskins shrugged. ‘Dunno, mate. You coming for that stew or not?’ Singh locked up the van, checked there was a uniformed officer nearby to keep an eye on it, and followed Hoskins towards the main house. The detective constable led him to a narrow set of stone steps at the side of the house, which descended to a basement door which Hoskins opened. Singh was then led along a narrow and musty corridor, past various storerooms.

  ‘This place is a warren, Carl. But you seem to know your way around.’

  ‘I can always find food, me.’

  After several turnings, and the crossing of an internal courtyard, they arrived in a large but antiquated kitchen in which half a dozen mainly Asian staff toiled over pots and pans on an old-fashioned range.

  A sizeable middle-aged matron greeted Hoskins by kissing him on both cheeks, and pulled him into a bear hug. She had winged glasses and auburn hair tied back in a ponytail under her chef’s cap. ‘Is this your friend?’ she asked Hoskins.

  ‘Tatiana, this is Detective Sergeant Vikram Singh, my friend and drinking buddy.’