Suspect

by Nicholas Rhea

  Suspect

  A Mark Pemberton Case

  Nicholas Rhea

  About the Author

  Nicholas Rhea was born in Glaisdale, a Yorkshire Moors Village, in 1936. The oldest of three sons born to an insurance agent and a teacher, he won a scholarship to Whitby Grammar School but left at 16 to become a police cadet. In 1956, he joined the North Yorkshire force in Whitby.

  He began to write seriously in the late 1950s after years of casual interest, having his first short story published in the Police Review. Continuing to rise through the ranks at the region’s Police Headquarters in Northallerton, he published his first novel, Carnaby and the Hijackers, in 1976.

  Rhea is primarily known for his Constable series, inspired by his many years of police service. He retired in 1982 to concentrate on his writing, encouraged by an interest in his Constable books from Yorkshire Television. This was to become the highly popular Heartbeat series, which ran for 18 seasons and over 350 episodes.

  Rhea had four children and eight grandchildren and lived with his wife in a quiet North Yorkshire village. He died in 2017.

  Also By Nicholas Rhea

  The Mark Pemberton Series

  Family Ties

  Suspect

  Confession

  False Alibi

  Grave Secrets

  Death of a Princess

  The Sniper

  Dead Ends

  Murder Under the Midnight Sun

  The Montague Pluke Series

  Omens of Death

  Superstitious Death

  A Well-Pressed Shroud

  A Full-Churchyard

  Prize Murder

  The Carnaby Series

  Carnaby and the Hijackers

  Carnaby and the Goalbreakers

  Carnaby and the Assassins

  Carnaby and the Conspirators

  Carnaby and the Saboteurs

  Carnaby and the Eliminators

  Carnaby and the Demonstrators

  Carnaby and the Infiltrators

  Carnaby and the Kidnappers

  Carnaby and the Counterfeiters

  Carnaby and the Campaigners

  This edition published in 2019 by Agora Books

  First published in Great Britain in 1995 by Constable

  Agora Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS

  Copyright © Nicholas Rhea, 1995

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Chapter One

  ‘You’re happier these days, Mark, and it shows.’ The Chief Constable’s smile was warm and friendly. ‘You’re more at ease, more relaxed.’

  Detective Superintendent Mark Pemberton, seated on a chair before his boss’s desk, sipped a black coffee. ‘Yes, I am, sir, thank you.’

  ‘You’ve got over your wife’s death?’

  ‘Not entirely, but I’ve come to terms with it. And I’m taking more time off, making friends outside the job too. It’s not easy, mixing a social life with police work, but I’m managing.’

  ‘So what are you doing in your spare time?’ Charles Moore was showing a genuine interest in Mark’s welfare.

  ‘I’ve joined a rambling club, we explore the dales and moors. I’m discovering parts of Yorkshire I never knew existed.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re making the effort. I must admit I prefer the new, relaxed and not-so-gloomy Mark Pemberton. There was anger in you. You’d become very introverted, you know, and you were working far too hard.’

  ‘I had to keep busy, sir, there was nothing to keep me at home. I used work to get rid of my anger, get me over my loss, I suppose.’

  ‘I understand.’ Moore’s tone was sympathetic. ‘But it’s down to business now. I’m faced with the ever-present need to spend less money while making better use of existing manpower and resources and at the same time I have to detect more and more crime.’

  ‘Hoary old regulars!’ grinned Mark Pemberton. ‘So long as I’ve been in the job, we’ve been told to spend less, get more officers on the streets and detect more crime, but I’d say we’re detecting a greater number of crimes than we did say, fifty years ago…’ He realised Moore was regarding him calmly and began to appreciate why the Chief had called him in. ‘If it’s cuts we’re talking about, I suppose it’ll affect the Muriel Brown enquiry?’

  Mark could envisage that investigation being wound up. It wouldn’t be a great surprise. Being allowed three detective constables to work full-time on that old enquiry was something of a luxury — Pemberton’s long-term worry was that a lack of funds and a shortage of staff could result in that murder remaining forever unsolved. That thought was highly frustrating — that a lack of money could enable a killer to evade justice seemed very wrong indeed. The Chief now addressed Pemberton’s concerns.

  ‘Don’t forget that Muriel Brown was murdered a long time ago, Mark, before I became Chief Constable of this force. The chances of discovering her killer are remote by any standards.’

  ‘But not impossible.’ Mark wasn’t going to let this crime be forgotten.

  ‘To be honest,’ Moore spoke softly and smoothly, ‘I can’t see that we need to fret unduly about an undetected murder which is some fifteen years old. Besides, even if we do crack it, it’ll be just one more crime detected. A single clear-up. That won’t make a very large contribution to our “Detected Crime” figures — give me a batch of a hundred detected burglaries any day. They’re much more impressive on paper!’

  ‘You can’t compare burglary with murder, sir!’ Pemberton had to defend his desire to keep this old enquiry active. ‘Some yobbo admitting a string of break-ins is no comparison with a murderer caught by good police work. Paper-pushing policemen and Home Office clerks will be our downfall! Statistics of that kind make nonsense of our work! I regard it as my duty to do all in my power to identify the murderer. The fact that the crime’s an old one doesn’t matter — in fact, this one ensures that my officers remain up to date with HOLMES and current investigative techniques. It allows them an opportunity to work with computers and it’s taught them how to abstract important data from statement forms, even very old ones. It’s highlighted mistakes made by their predecessors, mistakes that will benefit future enquiries. All that is most important — we all learn from mistakes. Muriel Brown has been a first-class means of providing extra training for young detectives, far better than any exercise we could devise. It’s real too, which means there’s the job satisfaction aspect. We might get a result — we might identify the killer. That’s important even if it is only one detected crime.’

  ‘I appreciate what you say, Mark, and I admire your spirited defence. You’ll be pleased that Muriel Brown is not going to be totally abandoned. I’m replacing your three plain-clothes officers which means the murder enquiry can continue. Inspector Hadley will join your staff, he will replace those detectives.’

  ‘Vic Hadley? George Washington incarnate?’

  ‘George Washington?’ grinned the Chief. ‘Who calls him that?’

  ‘Most of the force, sir,’ smiled Mark Pemberton. ‘It’s because he says he cannot tell a lie.’

  ‘That’s a lie in itself.’ The Chief was bemused by this. ‘I don’t believe anyone goes through life without telling some sort of a lie. I must admit I’ve never come across that nickname for Hadley. Anyway, Inspector Hadley, George Washington or
whatever you call him, is going to join your department.’

  ‘I thought he was on sick leave, sir, something to do with stress?’

  ‘He is, Mark, but he’s on the mend, he needs to be usefully employed.’

  ‘But he’s a uniform inspector, sir, they’re detective constables.’

  Pemberton’s instinctive response was adverse. Why choose Hadley? Of all the officers in the force, Hadley was the last person Pemberton would have selected for any task in the CID.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Mark. But his advisers — doctor, psychologist, therapist and counsellor — are all agreed that some undemanding work, free from operational pressures and stress, will help towards his rehabilitation and restore his confidence. That’s why I want him to work in your department.’

  ‘Undemanding work, sir? In a CID office?’

  ‘If you gave him the Muriel Brown case, more as occupational therapy than anything else, he’d feel useful. He needs to believe he’s still a skilled operational policeman who can be trusted with important work. I don’t have to remind you, Mark, that it’s best he keeps out of the public eye, at least for the time being; you’ll need to keep him away from the attentions of ex-Councillor Newton and his family too. That man’s never off our backs — I still get letters from him, demanding justice or wanting to reopen the enquiry. He’s still as bitter as hell about his brother’s death. That aside, I’m sure you can usefully employ Inspector Hadley.’

  And as he issued dial challenge, the Chief flashed one of his handsome smiles.

  ‘There’s always work in a CID office, I’ll grant you that,’ Mark Pemberton responded without enthusiasm and placed his empty cup and saucer on the Chief’s desk. This morning’s meeting was almost over, and his gut feeling was that Hadley would be a burden rather than an asset. The Chief had made it impossible to refuse — but to take away three good, keen young detectives and replace them with a sick senior officer who would work shorter hours and require very careful handling didn’t seem a good bargain for Pemberton and the Criminal Investigation Department — or for the Muriel Brown enquiry.

  Pemberton’s ambition was to solve that case before he retired; it was the only undetected murder on the force books. Some fifteen years ago, Muriel Brown, then a twenty-seven-year-old secretary, had been raped and murdered in her own car, her death resulting from a bout of frenzied stabbing.

  The car, with her body inside, had been abandoned on the moors but her killer had never been traced. That crime had occurred prior to DNA testing, HOLMES and the other modern support services and computers which had become such an integral part of murder investigations. Old techniques had been used and Pemberton felt that if all the relevant data could be fed into a computerised data-processing system, the enquiry could be revitalised. The case of Muriel Brown might yet benefit from modern technology. In any case, undetected murder files were never officially closed. Nonetheless, Pemberton felt that the chore of logging all that old data into a computer was not really demanding enough for a high-ranking officer, even one who was recuperating after a long illness.

  But orders were orders and you couldn’t deflect the Chief Constable once he had made up his mind — and it was clear that his decision had been made. Whatever Pemberton might think or say, Inspector Victor Hadley, the former officer in charge of the force firearms unit, would join Pemberton’s team.

  ‘He will start on Monday morning.’ Charles Moore flashed one of his dazzling smiles. ‘And I shall require weekly reports on his progress.’

  Hadley’s illness was officially described as ‘stress-related’. The file of the incident which had brought it about was kept under confidential cover at force headquarters. The documents were therefore beyond the immediate reach of Pemberton while he was operating from Rainesbury police station, but even without access to that file he could recall the event.

  It was the sort of incident that no one in the force could forget. There had been a tremendous outcry throughout the country and the facts were etched in the minds of every local police officer. The drama had made unwelcome national headlines and had led to questions in Parliament about the actions and supervision of armed police officers.

  Known as the ‘Millgate supermarket incident’, it had achieved notoriety because a so-called innocent bystander had been shot dead by Inspector Victor Hadley. His action had created turmoil in the press, it had generated fear among the public and it had resulted in accusations that the police had committed murder, the accusers being members of the dead man’s family led by his militant older brother. Even now, some two years later, the drama was by no means forgotten.

  As he returned to his office, Pemberton recalled the tragedy. An informer had tipped off the CID that there would be an armed raid on a security van as it delivered a large and special consignment of cash to Millgate supermarket in Fawneswick. An armed response unit, led by Inspector Hadley, had concealed themselves nearby to await and ambush the raiders. CID officers had also been hidden while other detectives had waited inside the supermarket and within other nearby buildings. The security van with three guards on board had arrived at 8.25am, five minutes earlier than anticipated.

  Three raiders had been waiting. They had gone about their intended objective, two of them being armed with sawn-off shotguns. The third raider, the getaway driver, was not armed.

  As the police had emerged from hiding to make their arrests, one of the raiders had fired shots but none of the officers had been hit. The shots had gone over their heads. Realising they were surrounded by armed police, the raiders had quickly surrendered, and all were immediately arrested. The raid had failed: the tip-off had been a good one. Those aspects of the incident had not produced any problems.

  During the early, very tense moments of the intended robbery, however, as the raid was in progress, a fourth man had unexpectedly appeared on the scene. Inspector Hadley claimed he was armed and said he had been aiming his sawn-off shotgun at a detective — Hadley had reacted instinctively and had shot the man dead. The deceased’s name was Joseph ‘Joss’ Newton and he was twenty-nine years old.

  After news of the killing had been made public, there had developed a massive protest at Inspector Hadley’s action. The campaign was led by Newton’s older brother, Brian, who was a former trade unionist, an ex-town councillor and now a shift worker in a food-canning factory. His fierce antagonism was directed against the police and was based on the claim that Joss Newton had had nothing to do with the raid. It was claimed he was merely an innocent bystander. Later, the arrested raiders said that Newton was not involved and had never been associated with them. According to them, he was not, and never had been, a member of their team. Of greater importance was the claim by ex-Councillor Newton that his brother had not been carrying a shotgun and that he had not been armed in any way. His persistent theme was that the police had murdered an innocent man, the father of two little children who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Newton had openly said that his brother had been shot in cold blood, the deliberate victim of the police. He had accused the police of murdering Joss and had repeated those allegations in a long-running campaign, aided by some of the tabloid press. He said he would never rest until Joss’s killer, ie Inspector Victor Hadley, had been dealt with for the crime and until his brother’s name had been cleared.

  Brian Newton’s campaign was supported by the fact that Joss had no previous convictions and that Joss’s wife, Lara, claimed he had gone to the supermarket as soon as the doors were open that morning, at 8.30am, to get some cereals for their two young children’s breakfasts. He was an innocent member of the public, a dad shopping for his family, she said. Brian Newton and his supporters claimed that Joss had simply walked into the ambush and had been shot dead by trigger-happy police.

  Inspector Hadley had claimed otherwise; he’d insisted that Newton had been carrying a sawn-off shotgun which had been pointing towards a detective. A highly trained and reliable police officer,
he had killed Newton to save that detective’s life. It had been a split-second decision by a highly trained policeman who was also an expert marksman.

  Two sawn-off shotguns, both double-barrelled, and four spent cartridge shells had been recovered at the scene; one of the cartridges had come from Hadley’s police-issue shotgun. Four shots had been heard, although some witnesses, including police officers, said there had been only three. Some suggested that the sound of a fourth shot was an echo produced by the high-walled surrounding buildings, but they had all been so close together that no one was quite certain.

  Inspector Hadley claimed that one loaded shotgun belonged to Newton, but it was later claimed by one of the arrested men, Roger Pollard, that he, not Newton, had been carrying that particular weapon. Newton’s brother, Brian, had established that claim during a prison visit to Pollard. Later, Pollard’s fellow raiders, called Sykes and Gill, had confirmed that Pollard, not Newton, had had possession of that gun. During that same visit, Pollard had admitted that at the moment he’d realised he was surrounded by armed police, he had broken the gun to render it harmless and had thrown it to the ground in front of him as a gesture of surrender. It had come to rest some five yards from him and had contained two unused twelve-bore cartridges. When that gun had been recovered by the police, it had contained two such cartridges, thus verifying that statement.

  Pollard had added that, in being caught red-handed, he had never contemplated a denial of his involvement in the raid, nor had he intended to dispute his ownership of the shotgun. The question of ownership of that gun had not been raised at the time because Pollard had simply admitted his guilt. The prosecution of him and his colleagues was quite distinct from the official investigation into Newton’s death. Similarly, at the time, none of the others had been questioned specifically about ownership of the guns although Sykes had been charged with additional offences under the Firearms Act because he had discharged his weapon. That shotgun, with empty barrels, had been recovered from Robert James Sykes. It was that gun which had been discharged over the heads of the police by its carrier — there was no argument about that and its barrels had been empty.