The Clifftop Murders (Dorset Crime Book 2)

by Rachel McLean

  But at the same time, if he was helping the Kelvins…

  Dennis gulped down a breath. “Come on.” He stood up. “You need to get home. So do I, Pam will be waiting for me.”

  Johnny stood up and brushed down his trousers. “You’re going to tell the DCI, aren’t you?”

  Dennis shook his head. “Not just yet. But I need you to stop.”

  Johnny looked at him. “I can’t stop. My brother…”

  “We’ll find a way around it,” said Dennis, looking into the DC’s eyes. “I’ll help you.”

  Johnny’s eyes were red. “You will? Really? You’ll do that for me?”

  Dennis nodded. Johnny was probably the only person he would do this for. It went against all his instincts as a police officer, but it didn’t go against his instincts as a friend.

  He clamped a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and shook it. “Come on. Let’s get a drink, and then we can both go home.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Lesley dumped her bag on the sofa and walked through to the kitchen. She opened cupboards, impatient. She didn’t have the energy to cook, there had to be something quick she could heat up.

  Bingo. The remains of a takeaway curry lurked in a plastic tub at the back of the fridge. She got it out, poked at it with a fork and stuck it in the microwave.

  Lesley could cook. In fact, she was a good cook. When she’d been living in her spacious four bed terraced home with her husband Terry, she’d even hosted dinner parties, although she hadn’t had time for that sort of thing since she’d become a DCI. But here in her cottage, she had a pokey kitchen that smelled of damp and she didn’t feel the urge to cook anything from scratch.

  She wandered through to the living room while she waited for the microwave to ping. She flicked on the TV, a reality TV show. She grimaced and turned it off. She grabbed her phone and called Zoe, her colleague from the West Midlands.

  “DI Finch.”

  “Hi, Zoe. It’s Lesley. How’s things?”

  “Nice to hear from you, Lesley. Things are good. Mo’s taking the inspector’s exam and Connie’s applying for sergeant.”

  “I thought the other guy in your team was going for sergeant, the Welsh one?”

  Zoe laughed. “Rhodri. We’re not talking about it. He took the exam and failed.”

  Lesley winced. “Ouch.”

  “He’s like a dragon with a sore head right now. But he can take it again. Sorry, Lesley, you didn’t call to ask about my team. What can I do for you?”

  Lesley lowered herself to the sofa. The microwave pinged in the kitchen. She ignored it.

  “You were looking into DCI Mackie for me.”

  “I hope it was useful,” Zoe replied.

  “It was,” Lesley said. “But there are more questions.”

  “OK.” Zoe sounded interested.

  Lesley had asked Zoe to investigate DCI Mackie, because nobody in her new team was prepared to talk about the man. She’d had a feeling right from her first day that this was one of those subjects it was best to avoid.

  “One of the CSIs down here,” she said. “Her name is Gail. She’s...”

  “CSI?” said Zoe. “You’ve moved to America now?”

  “Ha ha,” replied Lesley. “That’s what they call the FSI’s down here. They reckon they’re in Los Angeles, but really it’s more like Midsomer.”

  Zoe laughed. “So what about her, this Gail, is she good?”

  “She is,” said Lesley. “She’s bloody good. She took me to the spot where Mackie died. It was a clifftop just outside Swanage.”

  “No idea where that is,” said Zoe.

  “It’s a sleepy seaside town, about ten miles from where I’m living. Near a crime scene I’m investigating.”

  “Another murder?” Zoe said. “Wow. You’ve had an influence on the place. Or maybe it is Midsomer.”

  Lesley scratched her head. “Don’t. I’m beginning to wonder... Anyway, Gail doesn’t think it was suicide.”

  “Nor do you, do you?” said Zoe. “I mean, he booked that cruise a couple of weeks before he died.”

  “People do erratic things,” said Lesley. “Even people who are suicidal. Maybe his wife was putting pressure on him. Maybe he wanted to appear normal.”

  “But you don’t think it was suicide?” said Zoe.

  Lesley shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you saying you think it was murder?” Zoe asked.

  Lesley sighed. “I don’t know what I’m saying, but I certainly can’t talk to anyone here about it.”

  “You can talk to that Gail woman though,” Zoe suggested. “Is she not part of your team?”

  “No,” Lesley replied. “They’ve only got a couple of CSI teams down here. Gail splits herself between different units, but we get along. She’s good, she makes me feel like I’m not in a rural backwater. But she’s just a CSI, she’s not going to investigate a potential murder, and she could get into trouble too. So…”

  “You want me to do some more sniffing around for you?” Zoe said.

  “If you don’t mind?”

  Lesley stood up and walked into the kitchen. She opened the microwave door and pulled out the takeaway carton. It was hot, and she nearly dropped it. “Ow!”

  “You alright?” said Zoe.

  “Just getting my dinner. It’s worthy of your culinary skills, heated up take-away.”

  “I’m eating a lot of that at the moment. Nevinas has gone backpacking around Europe with Zaf before they go to uni.”

  Lesley smiled. She knew that Zoe only ate home-cooked food when her son was at home. Otherwise, it was fish and chips from the chippy or baked beans from a tin.

  “Which means I’m at a loose end when I’m not in work,” continued Zoe. “What do you need me to do?”

  “You’re sure Frank won’t mind?” Lesley said.

  “This will be in my spare time,” Zoe told her. “DCI Dawson doesn’t need to know.”

  “He’s made DCI permanently now?” Lesley asked.

  “Nearly. As far as he’s concerned, it’s in the bag.”

  “Sounds like Frank.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, tell me what you need.”

  “OK. So there’s this family down here,” said Lesley. “They’re called Kelvin. Bit like Trevor Hamm, but older.”

  “Older?” said Zoe.

  “They go back a way. There’s rumours they were smugglers centuries ago.”

  Zoe whistled. “You don’t get that kind of thing in Birmingham.”

  “I want to find out about them. Links to the police, corruption cases.”

  “Mackie specifically?” Zoe suggested.

  Lesley nodded. “Keep it on the down low though, will you? I don’t want my Super finding out.”

  “Of course you don’t,” said Zoe. “Don’t worry, you can trust me. What kind of thing am I looking for?”

  “Money laundering, drugs, that kind of thing.”

  “So small beer compared to Trevor Hamm?”

  Lesley scratched her chin. “I don’t know yet. Arthur Kelvin, he seems to be the boss. He’s got a luxury house in Sandbanks.”

  “Isn’t that that ridiculously expensive place I saw on the TV?” Zoe said.

  “It is,” Lesley replied. “A house there must be worth a few million, and he didn’t get that running scrap yards and launderettes.”

  “No.”

  Zoe was thinking of Bryn Jackson, Lesley imagined. Their former Assistant Chief Constable, who’d bought himself a palatial home in Edgbaston on the proceeds of police corruption.

  “Anyway,” Lesley said. “My curry is getting cold.”

  “Enjoy it,” said Zoe. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  DCI Mackie had been cremated at the municipal crematorium in Broadstone on the edge of Poole. It was a nice enough place, but too impersonal for Dennis. At least the man’s widow had arranged for a plaque to be put in so there was somewhere to remember her husband.

&nbs
p; Dennis stood in front of the plaque, just one in a row of them inserted into a wall that had been designed to look older than it really was. The Dorset Police insignia had been inscribed into it, but there was no epitaph, nothing to show that this scrap of metal commemorated a man with forty-five years’ public service.

  He pursed his lips, trying to remember Mackie’s face. It was fading fast, in danger of being replaced by the image of his body when they’d found it at the bottom of the cliffs. He’d been twisted and bruised, his face covered in scars from the shrubs he’d fallen through. Both legs had been broken, and blood from a wound on his temple had mixed with the waves that washed over him.

  When Dennis had arrived at the scene, they hadn’t known who the man was. A kayaker had spotted him from the sea; he was invisible from the clifftop. They’d searched the clifftop for evidence of where he’d gone over and found damage to the shrubs but nothing more. There had been an argument with Gail Hansford over the logistics of someone throwing themselves off in that location, but he’d closed that down.

  The DCI had left a note. Clearly written and confirmed to be in his own hand. He’d taken his own life.

  Dennis wished his boss had confided in him, maybe talked about what was troubling him. But neither Dennis nor Mackie were the type of men to discuss their emotions. And Dennis was a lowly DS. He’d revered Mackie, the man’s guidance and example was responsible for his own blossoming as a detective. But their relationship had been practical and businesslike.

  He blew out a long breath and shivered. He checked his watch. The post-mortem at Poole Hospital was a ten-minute drive away. Parking would be impossible.

  He pulled away from the plaque, wishing he’d come earlier. A walk around the crematorium grounds sometimes lifted his spirits, gave him some calm to remember the DCI. It wasn’t the same as a churchyard, of course, but it served a purpose.

  He turned towards the car park. An attendant was walking towards him, no doubt about to offer some words of platitude. Dennis bent his head and hurried to the car, not in the mood.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Tina liked being the first in the office. When the place was empty, it felt like she owned it. The privilege of sitting alone at the bank of desks that until six weeks ago had only been occupied by detectives felt extra special when she was here in the early morning.

  She settled herself in at her desk and flicked on her computer. The DCI had asked her to look into the Kelvin family. Tina could probably do that from memory. Even in Uniform, she’d had plenty of encounters with them.

  The Kelvins themselves were careful to stay on the right side of the law. But there was a series of employees, low-level people from their various businesses, who’d got themselves into trouble for drug offences. The Kelvins had plenty of businesses around the county. Scrap yards, launderettes, a nightclub in Poole, even a recycling plant. In recent years it seemed money laundering was going green.

  Their junior employees had a habit of selling small quantities of drugs on the streets of Poole and Bournemouth, and getting busted doing it. There’d even been a few arrests of people smuggling drugs into Poole Harbour. Those employees were always sacked and they were never long-serving people, always at the bottom of the food chain. Tina, like her colleagues, knew there were more senior people in the Kelvin businesses who were pulling the strings. But they’d never had the evidence to take anybody down. The Kelvins, it seemed, were good at passing blame downwards.

  She trawled through records. The HOLMES database, court reports, arrest records. She made a note of all the cases where the arrestee’s employer was listed as one of Kelvin’s businesses. At least, one she was aware of. That gave her a thought.

  She stopped and went to the Companies House website. She plugged in Kelvin’s known address in Sandbanks as well as the known business addresses, and found six more companies. She went back to HOLMES to run those against arrest reports. More, almost half as many again.

  She created a spreadsheet: employee names on the left, the business they worked in, their position, how long they’d been in post.

  She went back to the records, searching for the names of the solicitors who’d represented these people. She’d found sixty-five names, all people arrested for low-level drugs offences. Surely they didn’t have sixty-five different solicitors.

  She worked through each one, inputting the name of the solicitor who’d represented them. There were half a dozen names, most only cropping up once or twice. Ameena Khan’s name appeared only once, on the Steven Leonard case. Tina continued through the list.

  When she’d finished, she sat back and looked at her spreadsheet.

  She rearranged the rows by order of the solicitor’s name.

  One name appeared in fifty-two of the sixty-five cases. She’d represented all of those employees of Arthur Kelvin.

  Tina leaned in. The name was familiar.

  It was somebody that they’d interviewed, a partner in the firm. Elsa Short.

  Chapter Fifty

  “You’re here,” said Dr Whittaker as Dennis entered the post-mortem room.

  He shrugged. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Whittaker grunted.

  Music was playing, Vivaldi. Whittaker turned to Dennis, guessing his thoughts. “I thought I’d lighten the mood.” He looked at the body on the table. “Necessary, really.”

  Harry Nevin’s body lay face down. “I wanted to start with this gash,” Whittaker said, pointing to the back of his head. “It’s deep.”

  The wound had been cleaned up, the hair was no longer matted with blood, and the gash was clearly visible. Dennis could make out splintered bone and brain tissue. He swallowed down bile, forcing himself not to look away.

  Whittaker bent over the body and pulled back the skin around the wound. Dennis blinked as he watched. The flesh was torn in places, messed up and mangled.

  “Quite a whack,” said Whittaker.

  Dennis nodded.

  “It pierced his skull.” Whittaker poked his finger through a hole in Nevin’s skull.

  Dennis clenched his fist.

  “Must have been quite a blow,” Whittaker said. “To get through the skull. Poor bastard.”

  Dennis flinched. “What kind of weapon would do that?”

  Whittaker bent further over the body, muttering to himself. He turned as if only just noticing Dennis had spoken. “What was that again, old chap?”

  “What kind of weapon do you think did it?” Dennis said.

  Whittaker pulled in a breath. “Not a hammer, that’s too blunt. A knife, I would expect. It’s a heavy blow, and sharp. It would have to be a good quality knife to get through the skull like that.”

  Dennis nodded. “A kitchen knife?”

  “No, no, no. Nothing like that. Look at the skin. Look at the flesh here.” He pointed out the lacerations to the back of the man’s head. “See, it’s jagged. The knife was serrated, definitely not a kitchen knife. And it was strong, made of some kind of reinforced steel.”

  “How does somebody pierce the back of a skull with a knife?” Dennis asked. “Surely it’s not heavy enough?”

  Whittaker pulled away from the body. He bent his own head at an angle so that it was facing downwards and brought his hand up to hit the back of his skull. “The blow came from up here,” he said. “But the victim must have been lying on the ground. To get enough force, you’d need to have something behind him. So they had him already down.”

  “Surely he would have been struggling,” Dennis said.

  Whittaker shook his head. “The wound is too clean and there’s no sign of defensive wounds, no practice marks.”

  “Practice marks?” Dennis asked.

  “You know,” Whittaker told him. “The little jabs you see when somebody has a first attempt at hitting somebody before they build up to the main event.”

  Dennis nodded. He’d seen those on other victims. Most killers were nervous of plunging in the knife. Their first attempt wasn’t enough, and they needed
a few strikes.

  Whittaker turned back to the body. “Whoever did this, they knew what they were doing, and they weren’t the slightest bit afraid.”

  With the help of an assistant, he heaved the body over to reveal the face. A dark bruise ran down the side of the nose and there were scratches on the right cheek bone.

  “You said there were no defensive wounds?” Dennis said.

  “These aren’t defensive wounds,” Whittaker told him. “This is from him being shoved into the ground. It’s road rash. We normally see it in traffic accidents.”

  Dennis bent over and peered in, glad that he was no longer looking into the man’s skull. “So he was lying on tarmac when he was hit?”

  “That’s what I’d conclude,” said Whittaker. “Somebody knocked him down, pushed him along, then stabbed him.”

  “Could a single person do that?” Dennis asked.

  Whittaker wrinkled his nose. “He’s heavy. I’d imagine not.”

  “Maybe he was drugged?”

  “We’ve done a toxicology analysis. Nothing. Approximately five units of alcohol, a trace of cocaine, the kind of quantity you see when somebody has taken it a week ago. Nothing that would have drugged him enough to make him fall to the ground.”

  “So they surprised him,” Dennis said. “Knocked him out, got him on the floor and stabbed him in the back of the head.”

  “If they knocked him out, the mark would be close to the stab site,” said Whittaker. “That’s why we can’t distinguish it.” He plunged his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and surveyed the body. “These chaps knew what they were doing. This was no crime of passion.”

  “Chaps?” Dennis said.

  Whittaker shrugged. “I don’t imagine a woman would be strong enough to do this. Do you?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “You have two assailants, possibly more,” said Whittaker. “One to take him down, one to deliver the blow. He weighs around ninety kilogrammes.”

  Dennis nodded. “Thanks.”