by Iain Cameron
‘Ah,’ Henderson said, ‘I understand now.’
‘I’m glad you do, maybe you’d like to share your new-found knowledge with some of my colleagues, as some of them don’t.’
‘I’d like to ask you about your relationship with John Beech.’
‘It doesn’t do to speak ill of the dead, does it, but I have to say I didn’t like the man.’
‘Why not?’
‘Where do I start? Officious, pompous, pernickety…I could go on, but I’m sure you can see what I’m getting at.’
‘Was he this way with everyone?’
‘I think so, but due to the nature of the work he did, the majority of the people he spoke to were in my team.’
‘How did this animosity manifest itself?’
‘Shouting matches, terse emails, heated exchanges in meetings, the usual with a colleague who gets on your goat.’
‘How about damaging his car, accosting him in the street, late-night phone calls and threatening to kill him?’
He laughed. ‘Handbags at twelve paces. It sort of escalated when we gave him this new circuit board for a project he was working on. In there lurked a fault we hadn’t spotted.’
‘This was caused by using a new computer system, I’ve been told.’
‘You’re well informed. See, we’d been trialling this new design software. We use it a lot now, but then we were feeling our way. It cost him no more than a few weeks’ work. I apologised, but Beech went mental. Coming out of the car park one evening, he banged his car into mine and accused me of stopping without warning. It could’ve ended up in fisticuffs, but it would be a heavyweight hitting a flyweight, if you know what I mean. I didn’t touch him.’
‘What about the death threats and the silent phone calls in the middle of the night? You had the opportunity, if you were up in the night with the baby.’
‘You’re right about being up in the night. I’m a modern dad and I take my turn, but silent phone calls in the middle of the night? It’s not my style. He must have other enemies. The death threat was a slip of the tongue. I was walking through Crawley with my family one afternoon, and he accosted me. We had a heated argument and I told him if he ever did this again in front of my family, I would kill him. I didn’t mean it literally, but I didn’t want it happening again. It really spooked my little one.’
FOURTEEN
Brian Faulkner nodded to a couple of regulars as he entered the pub. It was an old-fashioned place, more a drinking bar than a restaurant. In any case, the food was crap; The Covenanters in Uckfield had yet to join the family dining revolution. He ordered a pint of Guinness and took a seat at the bar.
It was Friday night, and as the town wasn’t part of the Sussex tourist trail, and not having much in the way of historical merit, the pub wasn’t full of new faces, decked out in their boutique-bought jumpers and designer jeans. Instead, there was a smattering of regulars, the same almost every night, and groups of local lads and lassies, some not looking old enough to drink. They were here to sink a bellyful of booze before heading off to a party, or back to someone’s house to smoke some dope. He’d missed out on that part of his youth and felt a pang of jealousy.
Thinking about those youngsters and the law reminded him of the visit to Black Quarry Farm from the police. In their discussions, Faulkner had been a little economical with the truth. Yes, he did go back to his girlfriend, Gemma Stevens’ house after they’d gone for a meal in Lewes, but he’d left her house earlier than she said to head into Uckfield and deal with Barry Wilkinson.
It was mostly true what he had eventually told Henderson about Wilkinson, including him living across the road from Gemma. The one white lie was about the unemployed plasterer fancying her and following her down to the shops. This wasn’t why Faulkner had beaten him up, it was because the bastard owed him money.
When Faulkner left the Army, he not only didn’t have much in his pocket, he didn’t have a clue what he would do next. During a short spell in prison for stealing cars, he was shown by a fellow inmate how to hack into a stolen smartphone. He’d taught him how to wipe its previous settings and insert a new SIM card, enabling him to sell it on to some unsuspecting punter as nearly-new.
Wilkinson had lost his, and Faulkner was happy to supply a replacement, but the little runt defaulted on the payment. The beating he gave him two Fridays ago was to ensure there was little doubt in his mind about Faulkner being serious. Sure enough, the cash was handed to him the following day.
Simon Radcliffe came to his rescue soon after his release from prison, as he liked to employ a few ex-offenders. He told him, as they shared a glass of whisky one evening, that it was his idea of payback for all the people he’d fucked over when he was in charge of a big company. Radcliffe was an okay employer, and did all the things a considerate proprietor should do. There was a pension scheme, free food, a warm place to work, but he was a miserable bastard when it came to wages. Realising that ex-offenders were, in an ironic sort of way, a captive audience, he paid bottom dollar.
At nine-thirty, a familiar face appeared in the bar mirror.
He turned and shook the proffered hand. ‘Hi, Baz, how’re you doing?’
‘Fine my man. A pint of the black stuff?’
‘That would be grand.’
Baz slid into the seat beside him and called over to Ray the barman leaning on the counter, the sports pages of the local newspaper spread out in front of him. If Faulkner’s past conversations with him were anything to go by, the stupid sod was more likely looking at the pictures than reading the words.
Baz hailed from Brighton. He was born of a Jamaican mother and an English father, leaving him dusky brown, people often mistaking him for Turkish or Syrian. This suited him fine as he was a mysterious character who told Faulkner little about himself. Faulkner wasn’t ashamed of his past: neither his army service nor his spell in prison, and was open with any people he met, but Baz didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.
The drinks arrived and they clinked glasses and drank a toast ‘to business’.
‘What do you think of the murder of those two people around here? I know if it was near me, it would freak me out.’
Baz didn’t know where Faulkner worked or what he did, but assumed that anything happening in the area of Sussex around Uckfield, Faulkner would know about it.
‘It’s got the feel of a gang hit to me,’ Faulkner said. ‘Do you know, the geezers fired twenty-odd bullets?’
‘Yeah, so I heard. We had a couple of drive-bys down our way. The window of a crack-house got sprayed. The ground was littered with spent shells. Rival gangs, the police say.’
‘Sounds like it.’
Faulkner supped his beer. He didn’t like Baz much. He was young, good-looking, had money, went to concerts, to pubs, and there were always plenty of women hanging on to his arm, if his stories were true. Baz did all the things Faulkner could have done when he was younger, except he was in the army trudging through some fucking far-off desert in his badly-fitting uniform and poorly-made boots.
They finished their beers and walked outside to the car park. It was dark with some cloud cover but enough light to see if anyone was sitting in their car, or any suspicious vehicles were parked in nearby streets.
They headed over to Baz’s car; not the same one as last time. Faulkner wasn’t sure if he nicked them, but he seemed to change his wheels every couple of months, more or less the same gap that existed between their meetings.
Baz opened the boot. It contained a large box with the lid closed, but Faulkner knew it was filled with smartphones. He flipped the lid open and, sure enough, the little money-makers came almost to the top. Faulkner paid for quantity not quality, but Baz knew he would tolerate only so many with cracked screens or bad scratches before they moved into refund territory.
Satisfied, Faulkner reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a roll of fifty-pound notes, two thousand pounds in total, and handed it to his companion. Baz slipped the bundle into his jacket wi
thout counting it. The biggest lesson Faulkner had learned in prison wasn’t how to hack a smartphone, but that trust was the key element in carrying out a successful criminal enterprise. He didn’t need to like or respect the other party, but they had to trust one other. The minute that trust was broken, it was time to walk away.
He hefted the box out of the car, said goodbye to Baz, and walked towards his Hummer. He bleeped off the alarm, opened the boot, and placed his contraband inside.
A little smile creased his lips as he drove out of The Covenanters and headed for the main road. Three years ago, he didn’t have two pound coins to rub together. Now, he could hand over a thick bundle of fifties to a guy he hardly knew and he didn’t even flinch. Once the phones were reset, he could sell them for anything between one hundred and two hundred pounds. With a good batch, he could clear ten grand.
Close to a block of flats in the north of Uckfield, he stopped outside a lock-up. He opened the up-and-over door and drove inside. Many of the lock-ups he viewed before finding this one were too small to accommodate the Hummer, or if he did manage to squeeze it inside, left no room for a workbench. This one had been rented from a former Winnebago owner. To house that big beast, the previous owner had also bought the garage next door and knocked down the wall to make it into a double.
Faulkner closed the door of the lock-up before unloading the box from the boot of the car and placing it on the workbench. He removed the phones one at a time and sorted them into plastic bins bearing labels: Samsung, Apple, Nokia, and all the other makes, plus a bin for those requiring new screens and those just needing a good clean-up. As usual, when he first received a new delivery, all the bins were empty.
His favoured way of selling the phones was through pubs and car boot sales, as these outlets offered the greatest margins. With those remaining unsold, or, if coming close to the time when he was due another delivery from Baz, he would sell the lot to a second-hand phone shop in Croydon. It wasn’t as profitable as selling direct, but it was a good way to clear the decks and start afresh.
With all the phones sorted into their respective bins, he opened the car door and took out a flask. He poured a cup of coffee and took a seat beside the bench. Baz had excelled himself this time; not only were the phones, in the main, high quality, this batch included the latest versions from Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. He’d been doing this long enough to know this was the summer effect.
Baz lived in Brighton, and at this time of year, late June, tourists flooded into the town. Baz and his team of pickpockets and tea-leafs would descend on a plethora of venues where they could hope to find rich pickings: nightclubs, pubs, restaurants, casinos, Brighton Racetrack, bustling shops and streets. In winter, the phone lifts were limited to football games, concerts, and the occasional pub, focussing on those busy with hen and birthday parties.
In his own pocket, he carried a top-of-the range Samsung with two cameras, massive memory storage, and an HD screen giving top quality video reproduction, if their advertising blurb could be believed. He only used the thing to make phone calls and send the occasional text to Gemma. He didn’t grow up with a computer in his pocket, so he wouldn’t miss it if it wasn’t there. In fact, if he wasn’t in the business, he would be happy to use a basic Nokia with a screen the size of a Christmas stamp, and all the useful apps in the world wouldn’t make him change.
He looked at his watch: ten-thirty. He would work on for another hour before returning to the farm. He had a busy day scheduled, what with a delivery of chemicals, and the bloke coming to service a couple of the tractors. Plus, Radcliffe had left Faulkner in charge of the painters and decorators who were working on the house while he swanned off to booze with his criminal cronies.
Radcliffe believed Faulkner didn’t know about them, but he did. A friend of his, a former con like himself, had come to see him and recognised one of the visitors at the house. It was Joe Richardson, a Manchester gang boss who had served two years on an assault charge and had been held in the same prison as Faulkner’s mate.
He thought nothing of it, reformed cons were entitled to a holiday as much as the next man, but when he saw Richardson and Radcliffe yakking away like a couple of old pals, he became suspicious. On his little-used smartphone, he took pictures of him and other dodgy people and sent copies to his friend. Sure enough, he identified three serious criminals who had all stayed at the house in the past year.
He sweet-talked Melissa, the lady handling the letting of the house. None of the three cons had paid a bean for their holidays; it was all on the Radcliffe tab. Faulkner didn’t for a minute imagine his boss was involved in anything nefarious. More than likely, they were a blast from his chequered past, when maybe criminals were used to ensure controversial projects were approved, or protesters hounded from potential fracking sites. Nevertheless, it was one little nugget he kept on the back burner, just in case.
His reverie was broken when he heard a soft rapping on the door. The discreet touch made him think it was a woman, a passer-by who’d noticed the light was on, and not the big, gloved hand of the local plod, looking for weed-smoking teenagers. He put down his coffee cup and walked towards the door.
‘Yeah?’ he asked through the closed door.
‘Ah, good, there is somebody in there. Excellent. I wonder if you can help me. I seem to be a bit lost.’
The voice belonged to a woman, young and with a local accent.
He undid the lock and pulled up the door. It was a quarter of the way up when the handle he was holding jumped out of his hand. The door ascended at a speedy rate, being lifted hard by an unseen hand from the other side. Before the door was fully open, blue uniforms piled in.
He was pushed back against the bodywork of the Hummer by a big cop with a bright red nose and pock-marked skin. ‘Brian Faulkner, I’m arresting you for the theft and reset of mobile phones. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’
FIFTEEN
Henderson walked into the Custody Suite, signed-in, and used his Malling House ID to open the double doors in front of him. It was Saturday, a working day for him and several members of the team. Weekend working was a feature of most murder investigations. How could they take time off to enjoy themselves when the families and friends of the victims were still grieving for their loved ones, even if the family member in this case was the hard-to-like Kayleigh Beech?
He’d seen her little stunt with The Argus, or, more accurately, the offending newspaper had been thrown on his desk by an irate CI Edwards, a woman who kept her eyes on the media more than most. She wasn’t best pleased to find the name of Sussex Police being dragged through the mud, but she knew it was a complex case, and to criticise the investigation at such an early stage was premature. It didn’t calm her to learn that Kayleigh could be a difficult person, so the next time she came to Malling House, Henderson would make a point of asking another officer to join him.
Not all the murder team were in today, but those currently enjoying some time off would be working tomorrow. Seven-day working was not good for anyone, leading to a drop in motivation and morale, and increased levels of back-biting and bitching.
He’d been checking the Serials upstairs, the on-line list of all the crimes which had taken place in Sussex the previous night, when he’d seen one which stopped him in his tracks. After doing a Google search and adding a few more details, he knew he had to come down to the cells and talk to the offender.
An officer opened the door of Cell Three and Henderson walked in. It was a bare room: toilet, bed with a thin mattress, and a grey wall bearing the inner thoughts and ramblings of previous occupants. Unlike an older mainstream prison, the Custody Suite lacked the ingrained smell of urine, sweat, boiled cabbage, and marijuana which permeated the cells at the likes of Lewes or Wandsworth.
‘Hello Brian,’ Henderson said.
&
nbsp; Brian Faulkner looked up from his prone position on the bed where he was reading a well-thumbed novel.
‘If you’ve come to gloat, you can piss off.’
‘No, I haven’t come to gloat.’
‘Why are you here, then?’
‘I don’t know. To see if you were the same Brian Faulkner, the farm manager at Black Quarry Farm, and to ask what you were playing at.’
‘What do you mean? With the phones?’
‘Yep. Is Radcliffe not paying you enough?’
He turned the novel face-down and sat up. ‘Is he fuck. He knows me, Jane and Bill are all ex-cons and pays us less than his other staff. If we complain, he says we’re lucky to have a job. If we’re still not satisfied, he’ll tell us to sling our hook as there’s plenty more out there he can employ.’
‘He has a point, he’s doing you and people like you a favour. I can’t think of many employers who take on ex-cons and–’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you were one.’
‘I was about to say, and give you positions of responsibility. You’re not some oik out in the fields picking grapes or sweeping out the barns. You’re the farm’s manager, and Jane runs the café, important jobs in anybody’s book.’
‘Ah well, he’ll need to find someone else now.’
‘How much were you making with the phones?’
‘Ten grand every couple of months. Do you think it was worth it?’
‘Would you believe, that’s a question I never get asked? Ten grand? This for the loss of a good job and, let’s not forget, your other convictions might be written off to the rashness of youth, but this one won’t. So, no, I don’t think so.’