by Anita Waller
There was a crackle, and then Balding’s voice came through. ‘I am. Who’s this?’
‘PC Yardley, sir. Thought I’d better inform you that there is somebody already at the address you’re about to search. He’s a William Hanson, says he’s Lancaster’s partner. I’m still outside, but about to follow the recovery vehicle.’
‘Thank you, PC Yardley. We’re about a minute from you, so he’s not had time to spirit anything away. We knew nothing about the premises being occupied. You go, we’ll take over now.’
Billy stood at the window watching the truck indicate to pull out, followed by the police car, only to be zapped with the arrival of two more police cars.
‘DS Balding, DC Eden and PC Marks,’ Brian Balding said, offering his warrant card for inspection. ‘And this is a warrant to search the premises and remove anything we feel we need to take.’
They entered en masse past Billy, and he said nothing. He was currently beyond speech; he felt numb. So much blood...
‘Okay, this is what’s going to happen, Mr Hanson. My two officers are going upstairs to search. Do you have access to the loft via a ladder? I will remain downstairs to search.’
Billy nodded. ‘Underneath the light switch on the upstairs landing, there is a push button. It lowers the loft ladder.’
‘Thank you for your co-operation, sir. We’ll create as little disturbance as possible.’
Dan and George headed upstairs, leaving Billy sitting on the sofa while Brian systematically went through every drawer, every cupboard, every possible place that could hold something incriminating.
Two hours later, they had a few bank statements and precious little else. Billy had denied they owned a laptop or any other computer. He produced his own mobile phone, which they took, but said he had no idea where Kenny’s phone was. He assumed Kenny had it with him. DS Balding rang the number on Billy’s phone attributed to Kenny, but there was no sound. It was difficult to hear it when it was ringing in a lock-up a mile away.
Kenny sat silently at the side of Neil Harding. He had expected his interview to start before eight o’clock, but they had simply left him in the holding cell, getting angrier by the second. Added to that were his worries about Billy. How would he be holding up?
When they’d met, Billy had had no idea of Kenny’s criminal activities. They had been living together for two years before Billy asked him one night.
Kenny remembered the phrase with clarity. ‘Kenny, does your job with this Grausohn involve you working outside the law?’ And he had lied and said ‘no.’
The door opened. Harding glanced at his watch and tutted. ‘You’re late, DI Roberts.’
‘That time was an estimate, a bit like solicitor’s bills,’ Roberts responded smoothly, sitting down across from Lancaster. He put his file on the table and went through the routine of setting up the tape and naming the people present.
‘Okay, Kenny. Let’s see what we can get you to talk about, and you can listen to what we can talk about. We can start by saying something concerning fingerprints on a glass.’
‘Really?’ Kenny smiled.
‘Uh huh. Now, we know you worked for Nicolas Grausohn, but can you tell me the last time you entered his office?’
Kenny hesitated, as if trying to think back, and be accurate for the nice police inspector. ‘It was Thursday evening. He rang me about nine-ish, asked me to pop around and have a drink and a chat. He was my boss, so I did. We had a whisky and a cigar, I left about ten o’clock.’
‘Thank you.’ Roberts noticed Craig was starting to making notes, with question marks at odd intervals.
‘When we entered the flat after Mr Grausohn’s untimely fall from his balcony, we found two glasses on the coffee table, one held whisky, the other was empty. Did you drink all of yours, Kenny?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you I was there on the Thursday night, not the night he jumped.’
Roberts stared at him for a moment. ‘Now, we have two issues. One, he didn’t jump, he was helped over that balcony, and two, the second glass that was on the coffee table had your fingerprints on it.’
‘I’ve already told you, I was there the previous night. I had a whisky with him.’ Kenny could feel sweat trickling down his back.
‘We also have a statement from Gerda Bauer – you know Ms Bauer, I believe? – and she says unequivocally that the lounge was pristine when she left for the bingo. She states that it had to be like that, Grausohn insisted on it. Nothing was ever out of place, and everything had to be spotless.’
Kenny said nothing.
‘Now, this leaves us with a puzzle. The glass that you drank out of on the Thursday night had obviously been washed up. If you didn’t go there again after ten on the Thursday evening, how does a glass with your fingerprints appear on a coffee table at the side of Nicolas Grausohn’s glass?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe it was the whisky glass from the previous night, that Gerda had missed. Maybe Grausohn took it through to make sure it was washed. I don’t know,’ he said, a touch of temper showing in his voice.
‘Kenny, it didn’t have whisky in it. It had tonic water. Did you choose tonic water because you didn’t want alcohol slowing things down?’
Harding leaned across and touched Kenny’s arm. He whispered in his ear.
‘No comment,’ Kenny said.
‘You know what, Kenny? I’d have put money on you saying that. Right, let’s move on to other things, like Tommy Raines, Ella Johnston, Johanna Fleischer, Andy Brough and half a dozen others. Would that suit you better than talking about a glass of whisky that didn’t contain whisky?’
Chapter 25
There was a knock on the door. Heather looked in and nodded.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’ He made the first of several messages to the tape, saying he was leaving the room.
‘Heather?’
‘There’s good news on the grave location, sir. Two people, both from Ecclesfield Police Station, are pretty sure they recognise it. One walks his dog and the other runs through those woods every day. They want to know if you want to get over there, or if you want them to begin to excavate the site. They’ve already been to have a look, or at least the runner has, and there is evidence of soil disturbance.’
‘Right, I’ll postpone this, and we’ll get over to Ecclesfield. Can you tell them, Heather? And ask forensics to go as well. I’ll take you with me.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He went back into the room, spoke to the tape and closed down the interview.
‘We’ll continue this tomorrow. Mr Harding, we will be starting at eight o’clock on the dot. I suggested you be here, your client will need you. Oh, by the way, Kenny, Billy hopes you’re all right. We sent the search teams in this afternoon and brought your car in for forensic examination.’
Kenny blanched, then coughed. He tried to hide the dismay, unsuccessfully. He prayed Billy had cleared the house of technical stuff, but he prayed even harder that Billy had removed his gun from the special compartment Kenny had had fitted under the driving seat.
Craig followed Roberts out of the interview room. ‘Sir?’
‘Possible lead on Tommy Raines body, Craig. I’m taking you and Heather, we’re going now. It’s somewhere over at Ecclesfield.’
‘You know Ecclesfield, sir?’
‘Not really, I’ve always worked south and south-east of the city.’
‘Then, I’ll drive, shall I? I live that end.’
‘Good lad. Go and find us a car, if there are any left. If not, we’ll take mine, but take good care of it, Craig.’
Five minutes later, they were heading down the Parkway, towards the M1. Heather was in the backseat, clutching on to her mobile phone. She had asked for information from several different areas and told them all to contact her, whether by email, text or voice. She had no intentions of missing any.
When the Harry Potter theme pealed out from the back of the car, both the officers in the front crease
d.
‘Heather Shaw,’ she said, glaring at them.
There was silence while she listened to the message, and then, she thanked the caller and disconnected.
‘They’ve found a gun, sir, in a specially made compartment in Kenny Lancaster’s car.’
There was an exultant ‘yes’ from her boss, and she grinned. Suddenly, all the pieces were fitting together. It hadn’t been obvious from the photo of Tommy Raines that he had been shot, but if she had to make an educated guess, she would say it had been a bullet and not a knife that had killed him. Maybe a bullet from the gun found in Lancaster’s car.
They drove up The Common and turned into the police station car park. Within five minutes, they were in a van and being taken to the woods. Forensics had been there about two minutes and were preparing to dig. The second any human remains were found, they would erect a tent. It took about a minute to reveal a hand.
Kenny was taken to the interview room a few minutes before eight o’clock. Neil Harding was already there.
‘You know anything about a body in Ecclesfield Woods?’
‘What? No, I don’t. How long are they going to keep me here?’
‘Until they’re done with you. And if they don’t like what you say, it could be a long time.’
Kenny sat down, reeling from news of a body. Surely not. The hole had been deep enough…
Roberts walked in, followed this time by Heather Shaw. He placed his file on the desk and started the tape.
‘Mr Lancaster, do you know where Ecclesfield Woods is?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good. That’s a start. I know where it is also, because I’ve been there most of the bloody night, and at the moment, I’m feeling a little tetchy, as are all our forensic team, who worked overtime last night to get me the results of our investigations in the woods, so that I could tell them to you this morning.’
Kenny stared at him. He said nothing.
‘Don’t you want to ask me what those results are?’
‘No. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’
‘Then, let me fill you in.’ Roberts took out the album. He opened it and showed the picture of Tommy to both Kenny and Harding. ‘For the benefit of the tape, I am showing a picture of Thomas Raines to Kenneth Lancaster. Kenny, do you know the identity of this person?’
‘It’s Tommy Raines.’
‘Tommy Raines, who, like you, worked for Grausohn? That Tommy Raines?’
Kenny nodded.
‘For the benefit of the tape, please, Kenny.’
‘Yes,’ he barked.
‘You’re saying you don’t know how Tommy met his death. Tommy must have laid down in this grave and shot himself?’
‘No comment.’
‘I didn’t really expect a comment on that, Kenny.’
Harding glanced at his client and looked as though he was about to speak; he thought better of it.
‘Let me tell you what our forensic team have found, Kenny. First, they found a gun in your car. That little compartment you had built into the car under the driving seat was the perfect size for it. And the gun had only one set of prints on it. Yours.’
Kenny remained silent.
‘And then, to make our evening complete, we found a body. We already knew Tommy was dead – remember pretty Johanna, with the sexy black and white dress? Killed by Tommy? Either before or after he killed her, and we do think it was after, he screwed her, Kenny. We found his semen inside her, and just to make things really awkward for Tommy, his DNA was on our database. Of course, when we went to pick him up, his wife told us you had been to see her, to tell her he had been thrown over the side of a cross-channel ferry. Whoever took this picture of Tommy in his grave, Kenny, really helped us. A couple of our colleagues at Ecclesfield police station know these woods very well, particularly that strangely shaped dead tree in the background.’ Roberts rested his finger on the tree in question. ‘Pinpointed the exact location.’
Kenny was visibly sweating.
‘Anyway, we dug Tommy out of his grave last night, so that Mrs Raines can say goodbye properly. Guess what? He was killed by a single shot to the heart. With a bullet that came from a gun with only one set of prints on it.’
Harding finally spoke. ‘I need to have a word with my client, DI Roberts.’
‘Mr Harding, take as long as you need. As soon as you’ve finished, we will be charging Mr Lancaster with the murder of Thomas Raines, for starters. We have lots more dead people to look at, with a view to further charges. Dead people like this one.’
He flicked the picture of Tommy over, so that the next page was exposed, and showed it to Kenny and Harding.
Kenny looked away, refusing to look at the picture of Ella. ‘Put it away,’ he grated. ‘Put it away.’
‘Okay, Kenny, we’ll talk about it later. To put your mind at rest, we know Johanna Fleischer, of the black and white dress, killed Vinnie Walmsley, so you don’t have to worry about that one. There are another eleven pictures in this book; bit of a coincidence that he’s not in it, young Vinnie. You’re going down for a very long time, Kenny, probably for these eleven people, plus Nicolas Grausohn. If you, and whoever you persuaded to help you, hadn’t chucked him over that balcony, we would still have been walking around scratching our heads. So, while you’re talking to Mr Harding, you need to be thinking very carefully about giving us the name of your accomplice last Friday evening. Unless you’ve got four hands, you definitely had someone helping.’
Roberts stood, gathered up his paperwork and walked from the room, followed by Heather. Her eyes were shining.
‘Way to go, boss, way to go!’
‘Thank you, Heather,’ he grinned. ‘I enjoyed that.’
Billy stared at the telephone on the console table in the hall and willed it to stop ringing. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, and he could see that it was Carl calling him.
It did stop but then began again almost immediately. He snatched it up and said, ‘Carl, I said I would ring when I heard something.’
‘Then you’d better ring Carl, right after this phone call, Billy.’ Neil Harding spoke precisely and softly. ‘I’m ringing to say they’ve charged Kenny with Tommy Raines’ murder, and they’re currently lining up the other dead bodies as we speak. He’s asked me to tell you to get out of the way, go to Crete and lie low. I think by the end of the day, they’ll have charged him with Nicolas Grausohn and Ella Johnston. He says he didn’t kill Ella, Tommy was driving, but unfortunately, he took care of Tommy, so there’s no way he can prove it. They’re throwing everything at him, Billy; there’s a sort of photo album of dead bodies, eleven in total. He’s not admitting to anything, but I think they’ll be able to link him to nine of them.’
‘No…’ Billy’s grief was palpable. How could the gentle man he had loved be the monster Harding was describing?
‘He also said will you ring Carl and tell him to get out of the way. The police know there was a second man involved for Grausohn’s murder.’ Harding was relentless. ‘Oh, and he says he loves you.’
‘I’m never going to see him again, am I?’
‘Not if you’re sensible, no. He’ll never come out from this. Life is going to mean life.’
Billy said goodbye and replaced the receiver. A car horn sounded outside, and he looked around the room. It was clean and tidy, so he picked up his suitcase and his flight bag and headed out of the door. The driver climbed out and opened the boot, taking the case from him and lifting it in.
‘Plenty of stuff in there, pal,’ he said. ‘Long holiday, is it?’
‘Very long,’ Billy said. ‘Manchester Airport, Terminal One, please.’
He opened his flight bag, took out the two tickets they had planned on using that day, and sighed. He tore up one of the tickets and slipped it into the front pocket of the bag. He’d throw it in an airport bin, but he’d keep all the cash the search team had missed, hidden in the cleverly crafted steps of the loft ladder. And just before his
flight was to leave, he would call Roberts with the address of the lock-up…
Roberts stared at the list of people his team were working to trace. Unless Kenny Lancaster came up with some details, he doubted that they would ever find the bodies. Most of the pictures had been taken in some sort of garage or lock-up; only Tommy Raines, Ella Johnston and Johanna Fleischer had been in obvious locations. There was no picture of Megan Clarkson; he wouldn’t have been able to hang around long enough to take one.
He knew his team, and he knew they wouldn’t give up. His mind was whirling, and he gave it free rein.
And then his thoughts exploded into action. ‘Heather,’ he called through his open office door, ‘you got a minute?’
She appeared in the doorway. ‘Sir?’
‘Come with me, let’s go and bring young Daryl in. Is Craig there?’
‘Doing a coffee run. He’ll be back in a minute.’
As if by magic, Craig waved a cardboard coffee cup at him around the door jamb. ‘White, no sugar, boss.’
‘Craig, just the man. I want you to get together five men who all vaguely resemble Kenny Lancaster, make sure they’re wearing suits similar to his, and get them here in an hour. Dan will do for one of them; he’s the right height, similar hair. Check with our list of locals who are happy to do line-ups and get them here. I’m bringing Daryl Clarkson in to see if he recognises anybody.’
‘Right, sir.’ Craig deposited his cup of coffee and disappeared.
‘I’ll get my bag,’ Heather said. ‘We taking a squad car, sir?’
‘Yes, reckon young Daryl will like that.’
Aileen saw the car pull up outside and felt sick. She’d been feeling sick on and off since Friday night; in fact, every time she thought about Grausohn going over that balcony. Kenny’s arrest had made her feel even more nervous, and now Roberts was outside the house in a police car.
She opened the door with a smile. ‘Come in, DI Roberts.’
‘Mrs Walmsley. Is Mr Clarkson in? And Daryl?’