'We also think this is linked to a county lines operation. The Latvian gang we're interested in is based in Birmingham. So we'll have a rota of CID sitting outside the station. I'll give you all timetables so you can wait for the right trains. Anyone looks dodgy, give 'em a spin, look for knives, drugs, phones.' There were nervous looks around the room, so before the comments started, Haines continued, 'Yes, I know. It is profiling. And that's not what we'll say what we're doing. It's a multi-agency initiative. This part will be working with the BTP to reduce rail-related crime. Are we all clear on that?'
* * *
Over the next week, work was relentless. DC Angel had no time to worry about David Marks, who'd gone suspiciously silent. She was spending most of her time analysing the raw data that was being sent over daily as the technical team analysed the three suspects' many computers. Their charge list was growing as they found the unedited videos that confirmed who was definitely involved and where they were. So far, the date stamps on the videos corresponded with the apparent time of day so there was little doubt they'd be found guilty.
The only fly in the ointment was that so far none of them had accused any other of the murder. They all stuck to their alibi that on the night in question they'd been at Julian's shed until about midnight when they went home. Tom Small's parents had confirmed that he'd come in some time before one in the morning but couldn't be precise. Ceiran Knight's mother took sleeping pills so only knew that he was there when she woke up. Julian Lockwood confirmed that his friends had left down the side of the house and his mother thought he might have come in sometime between midnight and one.
In short, all three could easily have been walking around Bradwick at exactly the time Mazey Taylor was being attacked and killed. Although there was no forensic evidence, they had a motive, no alibi, and the opportunity. Things were looking bleak for them.
The workload in CID was added to because DCI Haines had stuck to his guns and launched a multi-disciplinary operation. International arrest warrants were enacted, gang masters were checked, all the various businesses that used immigrants, from hotels to fruit farms were checked.
Thursday morning, Haines asked Angel to come down to the custody suite with him. They were backed up because of a lack of interpreters and another six suspects had been brought in. This was enough for them to start diverting any future arrests to other stations.
'These new people we've arrested, they're all claiming they need an interpreter. I don't believe them.' The desk sergeant had his usual air of calm, but DC Angel could tell he was nearing the end of his tether.
DCI Haines turned to DC Angel and said, 'I need you to watch the suspects.'
'What for?'
'You'll know when you see it. Think of it as a lesson in practical policing.'
DC Angel could see that he was in good humour so she went along with it. Haines leant on the desk to talk to the custody sergeant. Angel turned around so she was facing the room.
'Say, Bob, we must be nearly full down here.' DCI Haines sounded almost carefully cheerful as if he were playing a part.
'Yes, I'd say that we were.' Desk Sergeant Bob Holmes had been here forever and was certainly used to Haines' tricks.
'So, with this many inmates, we'd better switch off the alarms for the cells.'
'Are you sure, what if there's a fire? Or if someone needs help, has a medical emergency?'
'They're just immigrants, it doesn't matter. Just check every hour, should be fine.'
DC Angel now saw the plan. Three of the new intake were suddenly animated. She saw the shock on their faces before they started pulling at their friends and talking in a fast babble of some eastern European language. Just as the outrage was building to a dangerous level, DCI Haines slowly turned to DC Angel with an expectant look on his face.
'Him, him and him.' She pointed to the three who had reacted. 'They speak English well enough to be interviewed right now.'
The three men who had been singled out visibly deflated. DCI Haines was pleased. 'Right, now we can get some of these processed and out of the door.'
Chapter Seventeen
The atmosphere in the CID open-plan office was strange and tense. It was a Friday evening and DC Angel's turn to man the phones, always an interesting task at the beginning of the weekend.
This time, however, she was joined by the two DCs, Mitchell and Hobbs together with DS Stonor. DC Angel felt uncomfortable because she didn't know what the three men were up to. Their excuses were thin – they were finishing up paperwork, chasing down leads or typing up notes. In practice, she didn't have to be a detective to determine that they were waiting for something and they weren't going to tell her what that was.
So, she kept her head down and deliberately ignored everyone else in the office. This policy worked well until the phone rang and broke the atmosphere. Aware of the eyes of the other CID members on her, DC Angel picked up the call.
'DC Angel.'
'It's PC Steve Walsh, we've got a body. Is DI Hargreaves about? DCI Haines?'
'They're off shift. I could call them at home but I'd need a good reason. Can't you just find who's on call for the coroner and give them a bell?'
'It's probably nothing.'
'Well, you've got a body there. Definitely dead? Not just drunk?'
'No, she's definitely dead.'
She, DC Angel thought, with an instinctive sadness. So many times it was women who were the victims and men the aggressors. She also had the first inkling that something big was up. 'Okay so we have a dead body. Is there any reason why we can't just call the coroner and pathologist in? Let them investigate.'
'It might be another one.' An awkward pause, as if he was moving away from someone overhearing. 'Like, you know, I was one of the first on scene when Mazey Taylor was found. You know, dumped by the bins.'
There was a pause as DC Angel thought frantically. It was obvious that PC Walsh wanted to get out of uniform and into CID. Fancied himself as a detective. It was an occupational hazard in dealing with uniform.
'You do know that we have suspects in custody? We've laid charges and are preparing the case for the CPS.'
'Yes, I know that. It's just that...'
DC Angel took a moment to consider. She could tell that PC Walsh was going out on a limb and challenging CID. There must be a reason. She would see what he had and then decide. 'Talk me through it, what you got there?'
'Well, it's a young woman lying dead on her back. Just off a path through the woods. I don't want to say what the cause of death is but she's got a red mark over her throat.'
'Is it a straight red mark? Any other injuries?'
'Yeah, it's straight and kind of red or purple. Like a really dark bruise. Might be a mark on the left side of her face.'
Shit, DC Angel thought. This was bad. The only thing worse would be if they lost the opportunity to check it out properly. The sooner they secured the scene and interviewed witnesses, the better their chances of catching the killer.
'Right, give me a few minutes to hunt down a senior officer and then I'll call you back.' She took some basic details. She hung up and looked round at the other people in the office who were all watching her closely. Aware that something weird was going on, she first tried Haines on his mobile, then Hargreaves. Neither even rang, it just went straight to voicemail. She slammed her phone down on the desk. 'Well, where the hell is either Hargreaves or Haines?'
There were awkward glances but no one spoke.
'What, is it a secret squirrel meeting that I'm not invited to? The first rule of secret squirrel is that you don't speak about it?' She saw the guilty looks and threw her hands up. 'Fuck! What are they actually doing? Has anyone actually tried to contact them?'
There were nervous glances around the room. Finally, Ed Mitchell decided to speak. 'Thing is, you see, they've gone to meet an informant. And these days, some of the informants, well, they've got all tech savvy. They think they're in some film or something. So, some of the meetings are s
it downs with all phones on the table and batteries removed.'
'So, are there any logs or records of where they might be meeting?' More worried glances shot around the room. 'So, we're not talking on the record, run through expenses, official confidential informants then?'
'Not exactly, no.' DC Mitchell sounded nervous and the other two weren't helping him. 'Usually there's either one or the other of them. Haines and Hargreaves, I mean. They don't usually both go at the same time. But as soon as Haines left, Hargreaves didn't say a word, he just got up and left. Something's up.'
'So, what are we going to do then?' DC Angel couldn't believe this. It was like an old boys club. Something inside her snapped. She was fed up of all their bullshit, the furtive glances, the conversations that ended when she entered the room.
With purpose, she snatched the phone out of its cradle. She stabbed at the keyboard with more force than strictly necessary as she became aware that the three men in the room were watching her. 'Yes, this is DC Angel. I've got DCI Haines out of a meeting with the super, and let me tell you, he was not pleased! Anyway, he's given me the authority to sort this out. You need to call your desk sergeant and get him to send some bodies down. They'll be in charge of securing the scene and taking statements from anyone hanging around or walking past. I'll get in touch with the coroner and the pathologist and get them out to you. I'll be on my way too, with a detective sergeant.'
There were gaps in this long list of instructions as she listened to the uniformed officer's answers. When she hung up, the others were looking at her with awe.
Finally, DS Stonor spoke up. 'What the hell are you going to say when this gets back to Haines, not to mention the super who's meant to be in a fictitious meeting?'
'I don't know yet. If they want to make something of it, then I'll ask them where they went without phones or records, while they were on shift.' All she got back was more stares. 'Right you two,' she pointed at the two DCs, 'phone the coroner and the pathologist. Stonor and I have to go off and inspect a crime scene.' She paused for effect. 'Oh, and if Haines or Hargreaves do decide to show up, here's where we'll be. But we won't be that hard to find as we'll leave our phones switched on and take Airwaves with us!'
Chapter Eighteen
The realisation that the case was in serious trouble dawned on DCI Haines in stages.
Once he'd left his meeting, he reinstalled the battery in his phone and there was a flurry of beeps and vibrations as messages filtered in. He saw immediately that most of them were from work and he knew something was badly wrong. He made a bad decision to ignore his messages and instead use the time to drive back into town as fast as he could. While he drove, he called up Hargreaves on his hands-free.
'It seems that they can't cope without us for an hour. That new bird, Angel, is getting in a flap. Something about a body being found. Lord knows why they can't just tell the coroner, run through protocol.'
'Where are you now? Are you on the scene?'
'I'm about five minutes away from the station now. I only just picked up the message as well.'
'What do you mean? Weren't you available? You knew I had a meeting.'
'It wasn't for long, I just popped out for half an hour or so.'
'That's not good enough, where were you?'
'On personal business.' Hargreaves voice was clipped.
'I'm your superior officer, I need to know where you were!'
'I wasn't on shift. Your name was down on the rota. You should have been contactable.'
There was a dangerous pause. 'Glen, you haven't got command of the team yet. You better watch your step. You knew full well I was meeting King and I expected you to have my back.' There was another pause. Haines decided he wasn't going to get anything out of Hargreaves right now. 'Right. Well, let's put that behind us for the moment. I'll see you in CID in ten minutes, yes? See what we can save from this mess.'
Without waiting for an answer, he stabbed the button to disconnect the phone. DCI Haines had a bad feeling. He knew he had his team well drilled to cope in his absence and something had happened to spook them. He pressed down on the accelerator, now worried. As he drove, he examined his reactions to this crisis and realised that he didn't like Hargreaves' dismissal of Angel. He thought her instincts were usually right.
As soon as he burst into the office, DCs Mitchell and Hobbs both started talking at once. He rounded on both of them, picked Mitchell and silenced Hobbs and Hargreaves, and sat down to listen.
The body of a female had been found in the woods with injuries similar to those on Mazey Taylor. A man had been jogging through the woods on his usual route when he'd spotted a pair of feet sticking out from some undergrowth. He'd investigated further to find a young woman lying motionless on her back.
'I was worried that I'd be under suspicion,' he'd said to the responding officer. 'You know, with all the Me Too stuff. And that Stanford rapist, who'd assaulted that woman who was drunk. So I jogged on to the road, it wasn't far and flagged down a car.'
He'd been joined by a no-nonsense woman in her fifties who was a nurse. Together they'd investigated and found that the woman was dead. DCI Haines knew they'd have to investigate their jogger, but he didn't seem a good fit for the killer.
Soon, he was holding a coffee, chatting quietly with DC Angel. In his mind, the doubts that had begun when he saw the messages on his phone were now forming together into something solid. They were looking down at their fresh victim.
She was young and pretty, lying on her back just off the main path through the woods. The path was a well-known shortcut. DC Angel thought about the time she'd been found and made a mental note to check if she was on her way home after work. Once they knew who she was they'd start to piece together her movements.
Her beauty was marred by the dark red mark straight across her throat. The ground around her was churned up but there weren't any drag marks – had she been killed right here? With all his experience, Haines got as close as he could without disturbing the body. His inspection revealed a large bruise on her left temple and some broken nails on both hands.
'Are you doing my job for me?' Dani Price, the pathologist had good humour as she walked up behind DCI Haines.
'Well, you took so long to get here, I thought someone ought to have a look!'
'I'll have less of your cheek.' She smiled at the DCI. 'What have you seen so far?'
'There's a bruise on her temple so she could have been struck first, then driven back off the path.' He looked down. 'There's no drag marks, so our attacker strangles her here. Not sure how she got to the ground, but that blow on the head could have knocked her off balance. She fought back, judging by her hands.'
'Well, if you ever want to change career, you could do your medical degree and I'd take you on as an apprentice.'
'Yeah. Thanks but no thanks.' The pathologist was already carrying out a preliminary examination. 'I know you hate me asking, but it could be critical in this case--'
'Time of death?' The pathologist interrupted Haines.
'Only in terms of a day, really. We're not interested in hours yet.'
The pathologist looked around with a frown. She gently picked up the victim's wrist and felt for temperature as well as the onset of rigor. 'Well, unless something properly weird is going on with freezers and staged body dumps, I'd say that our woman has been lying here substantially less than a day. Maybe even a few hours.'
Haines looked up and down the path. Sunset had been and gone and twilight was now deepening the shadows. 'This is a busy path. It might be that someone strong drove her to the end of the path, picked her up and dumped her here. But if you're saying a few hours, then that more suggests that she was killed here.'
'Yes, there isn't much disturbance to her clothing either.'
Haines had a sour expression as he nodded his curt thanks and turned around to talk to DC Angel. His doubts were now looming large in his mind. He hadn't got to where he was now by ignoring problems. He preferred to face them he
ad on even if that meant admitting that he'd been wrong.
'What's your opinion then, Angel?' The stress made his words short and clipped.
'As to whether we can link this to Mazey Taylor?' Haines nodded. 'Well, it looks initially as if the cause of death is the same and the victim is...' she paused and frowned. 'The victim is similar in some respects to the first one. They're both women, but this one looks older and they have different hairstyles and body shapes.'
'You think she's older?' Haines frowned and tried to look past the pathologist to the victim's face.
'Not by a lot but I'd suspect that she might be early twenties or late teens. Something about her doesn't say student or sixth former. I don't know. I may be wrong, it's just a hunch.'
Haines nodded. Over the years he'd learned to rely on hunches but also to give them the correct weight within an investigation.
'Based on where she is and the likely time of death, it also looks as if she could have been coming home and was attacked and killed right here. So she might have a job. But we do have a young woman who was strangled and left where she died.'
'On the other hand,' Haines argued, 'she does look different. The area is different, this one is in the woods not in a business area. And we have our three prime suspects neatly wrapped up and on remand at the moment.'
'What's the plan then, boss?'
'Well, we'll wait for the pathologist to complete their findings and see how many similarities there really are between the two. At the same time we can really press on with identification of the body, which will lead to building up a picture of her last hours. Again, we can compare this with the Mazey Taylor killing. We give it twelve hours, then draw up what we've got and make a decision.'
'And what shall we do if it looks the same?'
'Then we'll have to investigate the two in parallel. This is not a TV serial killer who takes a trophy or leaves a signature. There's no definitive forensics from the Taylor scene so any decision to link them will be subjective, based on weight of evidence more than anything else.'
The Retirement Party Page 9