The Common Enemy

by Paul Gitsham

  It appeared that Jimmy had been on a bit of a shopping spree since the bin was last emptied. Two Sports Direct garment barcodes, complete with plastic tags, were half screwed up. He carefully straightened them out one at a time. No surprise there; the first was for a replica England shirt, reduced from sixty pounds to fifty. He twisted the second one around; another replica shirt, the same eye-watering price. The away kit? He frowned as he compared the two tags. They looked identical, even down to the barcode.

  Further manipulation of the plastic bag revealed a screwed-up receipt. He smoothed it as flat as possible. Two identical shirts purchased three weeks ago, total cost ninety-nine pounds ninety-eight pence. Paid for with cash.

  ‘Hey, boss, take a look at this.’

  The voice came from the other side of the room where Hastings was holding a magazine aloft.

  ‘There’s a stack of them under the bed, well thumbed by the looks of them. A couple of them are still in plain packaging.’ He squinted at the postmark. ‘Amsterdam. I guess he likes his material old-school rather than through his internet service provider. I can see why.’

  Sutton looked over at the magazine and blinked. ‘Well, at least we know that part of Goldie Davenport’s story was true.’

  Chapter 73

  ‘The unlock code is included on the Post-it note. The owner claims to have taken compromising photographs of Jimmy Meegan and then emailed them using his phone to an unknown Hotmail account. Naturally, he claims to have deleted the original images and the sent email. I need the images and the email address he sent them to if possible,’ said Warren.

  ‘Retrieving the photos shouldn’t be too difficult, assuming he doesn’t use software to encrypt and securely delete the data on the device,’ replied Pete Robertson, already unzipping the evidence bag.

  ‘He doesn’t strike me as that sophisticated.’

  ‘Retrieving the deleted email could be more tricky. If he accessed his email via the website, then everything takes place inside the browser or on Microsoft’s servers and there are no footprints left on the phone, and tracing the owner of a web-based email account is very hit and miss.’

  ‘He’s been fairly cooperative, so he may be willing to give us his password.’

  ‘Fingers crossed,’ agreed Robertson, as he filled in a job sheet.

  ‘What turn around do you want on this?’

  ‘ASAP.’

  ‘I’ll do it myself as soon as we are finished here.’

  ‘Thanks, Pete, I appreciate it. If what Goldie Davenport says is true, then those photos must have been emailed to Tommy Meegan at some point,’ said Warren. ‘Either from him, or by this mysterious third party. Presumably Davenport isn’t so stupid as to use his own email address, so if we can find that incoming email, would you be able to trace the sender?’

  Robertson rocked a hand back and forth. ‘Depends on what route the email took. Sometimes it’s easy, other times it’s virtually impossible.’

  ‘Well, do what you can.’

  ‘With all the work you’ve been sending our way, it could take a while for us to get around to it, unless you want something else that’s top priority to be put on the back burner for a while?’

  Warren thought about it. The problem was that everything seemed equally important. ‘I don’t believe that you went through all of the other emails on Tommy Meegan’s phone,’ suggested Robertson. ‘I only had a cursory scan, so I don’t know if the photos you are looking for were sent to his usual email account or to another web-based account.’

  Warren asked Robertson what he needed to do.

  ‘I’ve transferred everything onto a tablet to make it easier to go through.’

  Warren took the proffered mini-computer. He groaned; over eleven thousand emails were listed.

  Robertson grinned. ‘Welcome to our world, sir. As a default we also include the junk mail, sent items, unsent drafts and recycle folders in case we miss something.’

  ‘Christ, where do I even start? I don’t know the email address of the person who sent it or the subject heading.’

  Robertson took pity on the detective.

  ‘Well, we can narrow the search down to only those with an attachment, or link to a file-sharing site. Do you have a date range?’

  Davenport had been vague as to when he received the mysterious contact; nevertheless, the list of emails immediately shrank, to just under five hundred.

  ‘Well, I think we can assume that British Gas weren’t sending Tommy Meegan compromising pictures of his brother,’ stated Warren.

  ‘Not so fast, sir. We already know that our killer can spoof an email address to something more likely to be opened by the target. If I were you, I’d have a look at everything on that list.’ Robertson smiled sympathetically. ‘There’s a percolator in the corner and milk in the fridge. I’ll get started on Mr Davenport’s phone.’

  Warren thanked him, but politely declined the offer of refreshment. A bout of poisoning from E. coli or whatever other bacteria Robertson was cultivating in that corner of the room would be inconvenient to say the least. Pulling up a chair, he lay the tablet on the table and started to read.

  * * *

  It took Warren twenty minutes to scan the emails. As he’d suspected, the communications from well known other companies were exactly what they appeared to be, with the attachment nothing more than the company’s logo. The remainder of the attachments were largely crude images with racist slogans added, usually forwarded as part of a chain and preceded by lots of ‘LOLs’ or ‘ROFLMAOs’. Warren made a note to pass the emails onto Garfield, he might find the list of addresses useful. Pretty soon though it became apparent that if the email had ever been sent to Tommy, it no longer existed on his phone.

  The initial excitement of Goldie Davenport’s revelations had worn off, leaving Warren dejected. He phoned Tony Sutton, to see if he had any thoughts or ideas before he left Robertson to his work.

  ‘I figure that either the whole thing is bullshit and the photos don’t exist – Pete should be able to retrieve them from Goldie’s phone and answer that question at least – or they were sent to another email address that we don’t know about. Pete’s team are going to look at Tommy’s laptop and see if there is evidence of any other email accounts.’

  ‘Or the email was deleted,’ finished Sutton.

  ‘Maybe Tommy didn’t even confront his brother. He knew what a headcase Jimmy was. Brother or not, would you have gone toe-to-toe with him?’

  ‘You could be right. He might even have deleted them to protect him, although that’s hardly going to be effective. By definition, the person sending them had copies.’ Sutton sounded as frustrated as Warren felt. ‘Maybe he didn’t even receive them. Have you checked his junk mail?’

  ‘Yep, nothing.’

  ‘Well mine auto-deletes after seven days. Maybe the email was marked as junk then deleted.’

  ‘In which case he might never have seen them.’

  Warren chewed his lip, before calling across the room.

  ‘Pete, if we go under the assumption that the email was sent to this email account and then deleted, would you be able to retrieve it?’

  ‘It’ll take time to reconstruct all the deleted data on the phone, assuming that memory sector hasn’t been written over already.’

  ‘If you were able to retrieve the email could you tell if he read it or if it was marked as spam?’

  Robertson was silent, pinching his bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. I’ll have to ask around.’

  ‘OK, do it, fast as you can. I’ll authorise the cost.’

  Robertson looked troubled. ‘I can do it, but even if you write me a blank cheque and I pass it on to one of our commercial partners, it’s a big job. We’re not talking overnight, or probably even in the next week.’

  Warren hissed in frustration. His instincts were telling him that they had all of the pieces to the puzzle in their grasp, but if they didn’t get this solved before Tommy Meegan’s funeral who knew what would
happen?

  Chapter 74

  Whilst he was in Welwyn, it made sense to catch up with others involved in the investigation, and so Warren headed next to Crime Scene Manager Andy Harrison’s office. It was a gamble, the man could be literally anywhere in Hertfordshire, but as he knocked on his door, the Yorkshireman nearly fell off his chair, his grey ponytail swinging wildly.

  ‘Bloody hell, I was just about to call you. Do you read minds?’

  ‘I learnt it on a course.’

  ‘Guess what we found?’

  Warren had no chance to respond before Harrison answered his own question.

  ‘A carrier bag stuffed full of clothes soaked in blood.’

  * * *

  ‘Sophie, one of my trainee technicians, spotted it.’ Harrison gestured towards a large video screen showing an image of the crime scene.

  ‘She was doing some blood spatter analysis, trying to pinpoint exactly where the victim and his attacker were standing.’ He zoomed in. ‘Anyway, there were some spots of blood on the wall of the fish and chip shop that didn’t seem to fit the pattern. When she looked closer and panned over the image she spotted some more, smaller spots here—’ he pointed to a place higher up the wall ‘—and here.’

  Warren leaned in and squinted. ‘Unless I’m looking at this wrong, that spot appears to be about three metres above the ground. That can’t be right, surely?’

  ‘Two point nine six metres to be exact. With another two spots even higher.’ He minimised the image. ‘Those were the only spots visible on the pictures we had, so we went back down there.’

  He opened another image.

  ‘There was a line of putative blood spots leading vertically up the wall as far as we could see.’

  ‘The killer bagged his clothes and threw them onto the roof of the chippy?’

  ‘Exactly. The roof was flat and less than seven metres above the ground, easy if you use the handles of the carrier bag to give you a little extra swing.’

  ‘Fantastic, can I have a look?’

  ‘They’re being processed at the moment to identify the owner, but I can show you photos.’

  Another click of the mouse and several pictures of blood-soaked garments appeared on the screen. The ubiquitous England shirt and jog pants were accompanied by a blood-soaked raincoat, waterproof trousers, latex gloves and what looked like protective overshoes. A bathing cap and face mask completed the ensemble.

  ‘I’ll give them credit, they did their best to minimise the blood that they took away from the scene. The protective outer gear pretty much kept their clothes clean, there isn’t much on the shirt and jog pants, but switching them for fresh clothes was a good tactic. Somebody watches CSI.’

  Warren sighed. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope the owner’s mum sewed name tags inside them?’

  ‘No such luck, I’m afraid. We’ve tracked down the manufacturers, but they come up as generic and popular. The shirt is a large, but that doesn’t narrow it down too much. For every person who wears the correct size, there’s somebody who prefers the shirt loose and baggy or who is still in denial about middle-aged spread. I wouldn’t even be certain it was worn by a man. We may be able to at least link the jogging pants to the thread found attached to the Kirpan.’

  ‘DNA?’

  ‘We’re trying to get some samples from the wearer that haven’t been mixed with the victim’s blood but it isn’t easy. I’ll let you know when we get them.’ He paused. ‘It could be a while.’

  ‘Keep at it, Andy, and pass on my thanks to that eagle-eyed trainee of yours.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Leaving the room, Warren called Sutton.

  ‘No firm ID, but we can at least say with some confidence that the clothes don’t belong to Bellies Brandon.’

  Chapter 75

  Warren walked to the lift, excitement and caffeine competing with fatigue to give him a slightly light-headed feeling.

  ‘DCI Jones!’

  Robertson’s unusually long limbs weren’t designed for running – an image of a baby giraffe from an Attenborough documentary sprung to mind.

  ‘Thank goodness I caught you. I am such a bloody idiot. Tommy Meegan’s laptop; was it switched off?’

  ‘Yes, you received it in exactly the same state we found it.’

  Robertson held up a piece of paper as they started back down the corridor. The man might not be the most graceful runner, but then he didn’t need to be. His long strides meant Warren struggled to keep up without breaking into a trot.

  ‘This is the scene log. It says the laptop was found, unplugged, under a pile of magazines and old clothes in the bedroom. Did it look as though it had been used lately?’

  ‘Well, his room was an absolute pigsty, he could have dumped the magazines on it anytime. But I’d guess he hadn’t used it for a while.’ Warren felt the excitement returning, the weariness banished again as they re-entered Robertson’s office. ‘If he’s anything like Susan and I, he probably did most of his surfing on his phone.’

  ‘I agree, in which case, there’s a good chance that his computer hasn’t been turned on since before the email was deleted.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well, if he used Microsoft Outlook or something similar, then the last time he used the computer it will have synchronised his inbox. If he deleted the email on his phone it might still be on his computer if he hasn’t switched it on in the meantime.’

  The idea was exciting, but already Warren could foresee a string of problems, not least how to access the computer without a password.

  ‘Piece of cake.’ Robertson snatched a screwdriver up in one of his huge hands and within seconds was unscrewing the bottom of the computer. ‘Again, as long as he doesn’t use encryption – and most folks don’t – I can simply slot the hard drive into a USB caddy and plug it into another computer. It’ll read it like a USB pen drive.’

  ‘OK, but what if he did synchronise his email after deleting it from the phone? Wouldn’t it no longer be on his computer?’

  ‘Well, if it was deleted from the computer, I could still retrieve it. Unfortunately, if he received it and deleted it whilst the computer was off it won’t have synchronised and there won’t be any record on the laptop.’

  Chapter 76

  Warren was exhausted by the time he returned to CID and he vowed to do no more than a quick circuit of the office before heading home. Checking his phone, he groaned; a text from Susan.

  ‘Looking forward to tonight, sexy man xx.’

  He vaguely remembered glancing at the colour-coded calendar in the kitchen that morning, but the red sticker on today’s date hadn’t registered.

  Perhaps it would do him good? A few hours with his wife might perk him up a bit; he just hoped she wouldn’t object to him having a quick nap first…

  His plan was scuppered by Mags Richardson the moment he entered the office.

  ‘Sir, the team have been looking at some of the body camera footage from the riot and we’ve spotted a discrepancy.’

  Richardson was not easily excited.

  ‘I’m sorry it took so long, but the material was filmed late that evening by the uniformed officers who went to The Feathers pub to break the news about Tommy to his brother and his friends.’

  ‘What did you find? Actually, no. Just show me the images, let me see if I can spot it myself.’

  Richardson placed her tablet computer on the table in front of them both,

  ‘These are the best screenshots I have. These ones are from The Feathers.’ She pointed to a slightly blurry picture of Jimmy Meegan, Marcus Davenport and Bellies Brandon sitting at a dark wooden table, its surface covered in pint glasses. Meegan and Davenport faced the camera, their mouths open. It didn’t look as though they were inviting the police officer to join them in a drink.

  The next picture in the sequence showed the two men getting to their feet, both pointing at the approaching officer.

  Richardson swiped the screen and called up a video clip, th
is time from the riot itself, shortly after the police line had broken down. The far-right activists were back-to-back, swinging punches at two approaching protestors, armed with what looked like bottles, who had broken through the police line.

  A moment later, the two protestors had been successfully tackled by a team of riot police, batons drawn. At this point, the BAP activists ran off the side of the screen.

  Richardson paused the video and opened the next sequence of screenshots. Warren took the offered tablet and flicked forward and back between the images of the pub and close-ups of the activists as they turned tail and ran.

  It took him a few moments to see it.

  Susan was going to have to wait.

  ‘We’ve got him.’

  Chapter 77

  Warren hadn’t known what to expect when he’d arrived on Mary Meegan’s doorstep to tell her that he was confident that her eldest son Tommy had been killed by his brother Jimmy. Denial? Grief?

  In the end there had been acceptance and anger. Not a raging, shouting anger, rather a quiet fury. For the first time since meeting her, Warren wondered if the simmering hatred expressed by her sons had at least some of its origins in her side of the gene pool.

  ‘Jimmy was always the bad ’un.’ Meegan’s voice was low, raspy. Her hands shook slightly as she lit a cigarette, despite being inside. It was the first time that she had acknowledged her son’s depravity without caveats.

  ‘Tommy was a thug. I know that, he got it from his father.’ Her eyes flicked towards the picture above the fireplace. ‘His old man was his hero. From the moment he could walk, he’d follow Ray around like a shadow.

  ‘When he was six tried to shave his head with his dad’s electric razor.’ She smiled briefly. ‘He couldn’t see the back and so by the time he’d finished he looked like he had mange and was missing an eyebrow. Ray thought it was hilarious.’ The smile vanished. ‘Obviously we had to finish the job, but Ray went further and used felt tips to draw tattoos on him then took him around his mates to show him off.’