Buried - DC Jack Warr Series 01 (2020)

by LaPlante, Lynda

  She then led the way out of CID and down into the yard.

  *

  Donal Sweeney lived on a council estate just outside Dagenham. He was a 36-year-old former computer engineer who, after being made redundant three years previously, went off radar. No job, no signing on, seemingly no income. And now they knew why. He was a big man, according to a mugshot taken after a drunken brawl the week after he lost his job where he had pulled a couple of knives, so they were going in hard and loud. He was clearly volatile, and a dozen coppers arriving to arrest him could be dangerous.

  This council estate was a typical high-density social housing experiment from the 1960s, duly forgotten about and now looking after itself as best it could. Petty criminals were rife, but crime wasn’t too bad as they tended not to ‘shit on their own doorstep’. More serious crime, such as murder, was restricted to people who were known to each other.

  Anik sat in the passenger seat of Ridley’s car, watching Ridley give orders to an Armed Response Unit – they all wore holstered Glock 17 pistols strapped to their thighs, and two of them held on tight to a short-strapped Heckler & Koch MP5. They stood with their legs unnecessarily wide apart, encased head to foot in Kevlar. Anik had always thought that armed officers must be both brave and crazy; it certainly wasn’t for him. He’d started the training last year, but as soon as the first simulated hostage scenario began, his bottle went. The idea of taking a life was something he could just about get his head round, but the idea of someone trying to take his life was impossible to accept. It takes one hell of a special person to race towards a crazed gunman to save a total stranger – and Anik wasn’t that special. He could handle himself well for a smallish man, but he’d never faced a gunman and never wanted to.

  Jack and Laura leant on the bonnet of Ridley’s car, arms folded, chatting and laughing. Anik couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he envied how their experience made them so relaxed in situations like this. He wished he wasn’t having palpitations; he wished the sweat wasn’t running down his spine and he wished his stab vest hadn’t ridden up so high underneath his chin that it chafed every time he turned his head. Eventually he decided to get out of Ridley’s car, so he could pull his vest down; sitting in a stab vest was clearly an acquired art.

  Ridley’s ‘slow and steady’ prep had been done in a quiet side street about half a mile from Sweeney’s estate, away from prying eyes. Now they were in position, the next bit would happen fast.

  *

  The ‘Big Red Key’ was swung back for a third time and slammed into the base of the front door. The bottom had more than one bolt fitted, so it was holding its own against the 16 kg metal battering ram. Each second of delay was giving Sweeney time to destroy evidence – Ridley was visibly frustrated. The fourth hit did its job and the door finally gave way. The officer wielding the ‘Big Red Key’ quickly stepped to one side, allowing the armed officers to enter.

  ‘Armed police! Armed police! Get down on the ground! Get down!’ Then a pause. Then a little mumbling. Then, ‘Secure!’

  Ridley led the way in, closely followed by Jack, then Laura, then Anik, then a team of uniformed officers who would be tasked with searching the premises. In the lounge was an elderly man in his mid-70s. He sat in a Mobility riser recliner with his feet up on the elevated footplate.

  ‘Donal Sweeney?’ Ridley asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the man wheezed. ‘You might be after my boy though, I reckon.’

  Ridley showed Sweeney Senior a warrant to search the premises. ‘Jack . . .’ was the only word he uttered before leading everyone else out of the room.

  Sweeney Senior asked Jack to pass him his reading glasses, which he did.

  ‘The little shit!’ Sweeney said once he’d read the warrant. ‘I said he could use my address to open a bank account and he does this? Am I under arrest?’

  ‘Until we can establish the facts,’ Jack explained, ‘you’ll have to come to the station.’

  ‘Right, then. I’d better start moving, ’cos it takes a while.’

  Sweeney Senior reached down into the pocket in the side of his Mobility recliner. The Armed Response Unit instantly raised their weapons and pointed them at the old man.

  ‘Don’t move! Stay still! Show me your hands!’

  Sweeney Senior slammed his hands over his eyes and waited to be shot.

  ‘The remote! Jesus Christ!’ Jack shouted. ‘He’s just going for the remote!’

  He took the remote control from the side pocket of the chair and pressed the ‘down’ button as the overexcited ARU team lowered their guns. The footplate on the Mobility recliner started to lower, the seat started to tilt, and the back started to push Sweeney Senior very, very slowly on to his slippered feet. As he became more upright, a catheter bag half-full of urine dropped out of the bottom of his trouser leg. The old man stood there, hands over his eyes, crying and trembling in fear, pissing into his bag. This was a whole new low for Jack.

  *

  Prescott and Sally watched as two of his SOCOs attempted to move the charred body from the sofa into the body bag waiting on the ground, ready to be lifted onto the undertaker’s trolley, which was parked just outside the front door. The undertaker, employed by Thames Valley Police to transport bodies to the mortuary for post-mortem, was playing Candy Crush at full blast on his mobile.

  ‘Turn that down!’ shouted Prescott. ‘If I hear another stupid fucking noise from outside, there’ll be two dead bodies being driven to the mortuary, not one. Idiot . . .’ he muttered. He turned to Sally. ‘What do you think of “Sheila”?’ he asked through his white paper mask. Sally frowned. ‘We got to call him something till we find out who he is.’

  ‘I get that. But why “Sheila”?’

  Prescott suddenly realised that the twenty years between them meant his joke was about to fall flat. He ploughed on regardless.

  ‘Sheila Ferguson? The Three Degrees? I know he’s got six-degree burns, but there isn’t a group called the Six Degrees.’ Sally was still looking very confused. ‘I pity you,’ Prescott mumbled. ‘You’re too young to appreciate how bloody funny I am.’

  The melted underside of the charred body was tangled in with the sofa springs and each time the SOCOs wriggled an arm free, a leg would get caught, and vice versa. In the end, one of Sally’s firefighters decided to cut the springs so that any pieces of metal embedded in the melted skin could just stay there until the body reached the post-mortem table, where the pathologist could remove them in their own time. Getting the body off the sofa was like peeling a label off a jar ‒ no matter how carefully you tried to keep the paper in one piece, it would inevitably tear, and you’d then have to decide whether to push the pieces back together and try again, or just leave some bits behind. Finally, the firefighter lying on his back beneath the sofa with wire cutters said, ‘That’s the last spring gone, you’re good to lift.’

  The undertakers lifted the charred body and placed it into the body bag.

  As the fluids and dirty fire-hose water from the blackened corpse slowly seeped out, it was abundantly clear that something was missing. In the springs of the sofa, the rubber sole of the left shoe had melted like glue and its hold on the foot inside had proved much harder to break than the ankle joint above it. Prescott shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

  ‘Valiant effort, lads.’

  Sally stared down through the shell of the sofa at her despondent firefighter on the floor.

  ‘If you could bag the left foot, please, he’d be very grateful.’

  *

  Forensic pathologist Abigail Coleman laughed so loud that it disturbed her assistants in the next room.

  ‘Ha! “Sheila”! Martin, you are funny!’

  Once the laughter had died away, she got down to business. ‘Sheila’ lay on the post-mortem table in the foetal position.

  ‘Well,’ Abigail began, ‘it’s definitely a boy. The pelvic measurements tell us that. But, more importantly, I’m almost certain that he was murdered
– there’s a large fracture at the back of the skull. This isn’t a stress fracture caused by the intense heat of the fire, and it’s not an impact fracture caused by the ceiling falling down because, as we can see from his very badly damaged jaw and cheekbones, “Sheila” was face up on the sofa. The back of his head, if anything, would have been protected as the fire took hold and debris fell. No, I’d say that the fracture to the back of the skull is a good old-fashioned blunt force trauma. But I won’t be able to tell you until tomorrow. His post-mortem is scheduled for 9 a.m.’

  ‘What’s wrong with today?’

  Prescott wanted the victim’s cause of death and he wanted it now.

  ‘Well, I could do him today.’ Abigail glanced across the lab at a post-mortem table in the corner of the room. On the table was a sheeted body, no taller than three foot five. ‘But you’ll have tell the parents of that 6-year-old boy that they have to wait another 48 hours before I can tell them if their son was raped before he was strangled.’

  Prescott left without saying another word.

  *

  Prescott’s office was minimalist to say the least. His desk, under normal circumstances, had a metal lattice cup for his pens, a desk diary, a phone and a small tray for the junk he’d pulled out of his pockets and needed to drop somewhere safe. This tray contained chewing gum, a USB stick, headache tablets, his wallet and a set of keys, complete with a miniature screwdriver for tightening the arms on his glasses. The desk itself was standard, but his chair was magnificent; Prescott liked to think in comfort.

  Today, his desk was littered with crime scene photos from Rose Cottage, and Sally’s video evidence played on a tablet propped up against the phone. He sat, enveloped in his huge leather office chair and took in all the images. Prescott’s visual memory was legendary – when he looked at a photo, he could also recall what was just out of frame. It was as though he was back at the scene. The stacks of cash in the fireplace of Rose Cottage were a puzzle to him because the money dated from before May 2017, when the cotton fibre five-pound note went out of circulation. His eyes flickered as he thought.

  There was a quick knock on Prescott’s door and two of his officers, knowing he was waiting for them, entered without being asked. They were each armed with a tablet and a notebook. Gerrard and Miriam made themselves comfortable and waited for their cue to speak. After a second or two, Prescott leant forward over the array of images and gave Miriam the nod.

  ‘Rose Cottage was on a long-term lease to Norma Walker until eight months ago, when she died of cancer. Norma was an ex-mounted officer . . .’ At this point, Prescott sat back in his chair, as for him this was the most effective position in which to think as well as listen. ‘She kept our working horses in her stables when the need arose, and most of them retired there. She was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2013 and, since 2016, she was pretty much housebound. She was well respected, had lots of friends. For the final eight months of her life, there was a steady flow of off-duty coppers in and out of Rose Cottage making sure she had everything she needed. Her partner moved in with her towards the end, I think. She had no family, which is why all her possessions were still there.’

  ‘Norma Walker? Norma Walker? Why do I know the name?’

  Prescott seemed to expect Miriam to know the answer to this. But she didn’t. Gerrard took over. Prescott loved listening to Gerrard’s gentle Cork accent so much that an unconscious little smile crept over his face every time he spoke.

  ‘Speculatively, if all the paper in the hearth at Rose Cottage was old money, we’re looking at somewhere between £1 million and £1.8 million. It depends on how much was in £5 notes and how much was in £10 notes. Forensics haven’t found any intact serial numbers – and they say they won’t, by the way – so we can’t date the money more accurately than pre-May 2017. I’ve got a list of robberies longer than me arm, with hauls big enough to be the Rose Cottage money—’

  Prescott jumped to his feet, slamming his palms down on his desk.

  ‘Norma Walker was interviewed about an armed robbery . . .’ Prescott’s eyes flicked around the room as he tried to find the memory he needed. Gerrard searched his notes whenever Prescott added more information into the search filter. ‘Early nineties. Maybe mid nineties. And Bill . . . Bill . . .’ Prescott clicked his fingers repeatedly at Gerrard.

  ‘I was born in ’92, sir.’

  Prescott ignored Gerrard and turned to Miriam. She was only one year off retirement. She would be more helpful.

  ‘Bill . . . Mounted officer, must have worked with Norma . . . Proper gobby—’

  ‘Thorn!’ Miriam yelled in an excited outburst.

  ‘Bill bloody Thorn!’ Prescott slumped back down, exhausted. ‘In ’95, the Aylesbury mail train was robbed by a gang of five or six blokes, not half a mile from Rose Cottage. Twenty-seven million pounds they got away with. Bill Thorn was in the Thames Valley search team that partnered up with the Transport Police. They reckoned it was outsiders – no local names had it in ’em to pull something that big. The roads were closed within minutes and hundreds of officers searched the entire area. Found nothing.’

  Prescott put his elbows on the desk, wrapped his right fist in his left hand and leant his chin on his clenched fingers.

  ‘If “Sheila” and the Rose Cottage cash are connected to a £27 million train robbery from 1995, it’ll be an open Flying Squad case, I reckon.’ He pointed at Gerrard. ‘You – dig up everything you can on the ’95 train robbery. And you ‒’ he turned to Miriam ‒ ‘dig up Bill Thorn.’

  CHAPTER 3

  By the time the two-car convoy had reached Watford, Anik was feeling sick. He sat with his head leaning back against the headrest, his eyes closed, and his fingers clenched together on top of the file on his lap. The handwritten words on the front of the file read ‘Rose Cottage, Aylesbury’.

  ‘I can’t read in cars, Laura. I’m sorry, I just can’t. From what I can gather though, the worst-case scenario is that the body’s a sex offender, burnt to death in an abandoned cottage. And the best-case scenario is that the body’s connected to a 24-year-old train robbery.’

  ‘You’re defining “best” and “worst” by how exciting you think the investigation is going to be, are you?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ Anik replied defiantly, opening his eyes and lifting his head. ‘It’s better than arresting a 70-year-old man with a bag of wee strapped to his leg, anyhow.’

  Then he gagged a little as Laura changed lanes too quickly. She pulled into Sainsbury’s petrol station, so they could swap places.

  Ridley glanced in his rear-view mirror and watched Laura pull off the M1. At the same time, Jack’s mobile pinged. Message from Laura:

  Anik needs to puke. L x.

  ‘Toilet break,’ Jack lied to Ridley. ‘Laura knows where she’s going, so they’ll catch us up.’

  Jack continued to flick through the file on his knee.

  ‘We’ve got statements from hundreds of people from back in ’95. DI Prescott’s highlighted the ones we need to focus on.’ He read out loud in bullet points for speed: ‘Former mounted officer Norma Walker – last rental occupant of Rose Cottage. Dorothy Rawlins also known as Dolly – last owner of nearby manor house, The Grange. She and five other occupants all interviewed. John Maynard – builder working at The Grange in ’95. James Douglas – railway signalman on duty on the night of the train robbery.’

  Ridley allowed Jack to finish his list before speaking.

  ‘Check Dolly Rawlins.’

  Jack logged into the HOLMES app. A moment later, he glanced at Ridley in astonishment. Ridley was looking smug.

  ‘Dolly Rawlins,’ Jack read out loud. ‘Convicted of the murder of her husband, Harold Rawlins, also known as Harry. Shot to death on 27 August 1995 by Ester Freeman. She sounds like she could have known an armed robber or two.’

  ‘Who was in charge of the investigation back then?’ Ridley asked.

  ‘Newman. Deceased. But we’ve got access t
o a retired mounted officer called Bill Thorn. He knew Norma Walker personally and was on the front line of Newman’s investigation.’ Jack closed the file. ‘So, back in the day, this gang got away with twenty-seven million pounds. They burn one point eight million in old fivers and tenners ’cos they can’t spend it legally any more, leaving them with twenty-five-ish million in legal tender. And whatever they plan to do, they’ve got to do it fast ‒ because next year, the new twenty’s due to come into circulation.’

  For the first time in ages, Jack felt his heart beat a little faster at the prospect of a new case. He thought back to poor old man Sweeney gripping his arm as he shuffled towards the police car with his trouser leg pulled up and a catheter bag in his hand. This felt different. He thought of how he’d said to Maggie that he wanted to feel excited by his job, just like she does, and here he was . . .

  Ridley noted Jack’s wide eyes, raised eyebrows and relaxed posture and congratulated himself. This was the look of an officer who was alert and ready to investigate. He’d been right about Jack, after all.

  ‘What are you doing about the sergeant’s exam?’ Ridley’s question snapped Jack out of his daydream.

  Jack didn’t want to talk about this now, but trapped in a car with Ridley he had no choice.

  ‘I’m discussing it with Maggie as soon as we can get time off together. Our shift patterns are . . . well, you know how it is. And she’s still trying to impress her bosses so they keep her on after this rotation.’

  Ridley twisted his ten-to-two fists on the wheel in frustration.

  ‘Maggie’s career is important, I appreciate that, but so is yours! And I’m not sure what’s to discuss. There’s a sergeant’s post open, you’re a solid officer, you’ve got your NPPF, and you meet the Met’s criteria. Either you or DC Joshi is going to get the sergeant’s position. You’ve been at this far longer than him, but . . . Look, you plateaued in Devon, but you can’t get away with that here.’