‘You see, Parker,’ he said, ‘they call it cutbacks, that’s how they explain it. In the old days, there would’ve been a local bobby, who would know everyone in the village. He would’ve been a mine of useful information.’ Saxon shook his head in frustration. ‘A couple of lads up from Brighton aren’t much use to me.’
Parker had heard it before. In common with many of his colleagues, Saxon regarded the cutbacks as more of a retreat, which allowed the crooks to run amok in the countryside. He was all for value-added work practices and efficient use of people and resources, but this was daft. It meant more police were required to solve the extra crimes, which of course cancelled out any possible savings resulting from the cutbacks.
However, that was another subject, for another time, probably over a pint or two. He didn’t allow himself to get distracted from the business in hand by the questions of policy and politics.
Saxon was looking around the cottage, reviewing the information he had so far. The victim was still upstairs in his bed. Downstairs, where they were now, DS Parker was making notes, which they would later go over together, comparing facts and impressions, knowledge and question marks. The first thing Saxon did on arrival at a crime scene was to fit the things he’d been told, usually by phone, into what he could see around him. He and Parker made a good team.
Joining the police force after university, Saxon had progressed swiftly through the ranks, experiencing most aspects of police work, from drug squad to vice. Now thirty-five years old, he felt he’d found his niche at this comparatively young age. He had in fact been selected from considerable competition to lead a specialist serial killer detection squad. Real life might not be too much like TV, but it was true that murders came in a reasonably steady flow, most of them proving quite easy to solve. The usual scenario was sadly predictable: the jealous lover, the deceived spouse, or a close relative who couldn’t take any more.
Harder to solve were stranger killings, where the victim and the killer were never acquainted. These were much less common. A good thing, when you considered that the lack of motive often gave the police very little to go on. Serial killings, on the other hand, were something else altogether. Saxon and Parker were here in Sewel Mill because their unit assessed every murder case in the UK, with a view to establishing whether or not any connections could be found to link one or more of them in any way.
Monday, May 6, 12 Pavilion Square, Brighton, Flat 3, 10.30AM
Francesca Lewis was unpacking her equipment. She’d been commissioned to get some pictures over at Beachy Head, for a story in one of the local papers on the problems of coastal erosion.
She enjoyed that kind of assignment, particularly on a bright, sunny day. She’d been there at first light and was confident that the pictures would be good. There might be some decent library shots in among them too. Everyone seemed to be interested in the environment again this year. Good news for the world and good news for photographers and journalists. Long may it continue.
Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 11AM
As Saxon finished his tour of the ground floor, Dr Marks came back in through the front door. He was a tall man. Saxon guessed him to be in his early forties. Marks was slightly foppish in appearance, his forehead covered by a mass of dark hair.
‘Marks,’ he announced, stretching out a hand with the longest bony fingers Saxon had ever seen. ‘Clive Marks. I’m one of the GPs from the Health Centre at the other end of the village. And you are?’ After Saxon introduced himself, and explained that they were from the Serial Crimes Unit, Marks briefed him on exactly what it was that puzzled him sufficiently to cry murder. He explained at some length and a tad repetitively how Mrs Hayward had discovered the body and called him, thinking that Janson had died in his sleep, and how he had quickly deduced that this was not the case. In addition, that he had noticed immediately the similarities between the other two murders and “his” murder.
‘Strange thing is, and I am of course no detective, you understand,’ he smirked, brushing his hair back with a well-practiced gesture, ‘but there is absolutely no sign of a struggle. Not as far as I can see. Nothing is out of place.’
Dr Marks was the proud owner of a pompous manner that quickly irritated people and was starting to annoy Saxon in what was possibly record time. “His neck is broken” would have sufficed.
Saxon took a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket, slipped them on with a loud thwack, and interrupted Marks as he was about to go into some detail about the position of the head.
‘Yes, thank you, Doctor.’ Saxon looked around the room and peered through the window. ‘Tell me, where is the person who found the body?’
There was a slight pause.
‘Well er, she, er, Mrs Hayward, that is, has gone off to work.’ Marks paused again. ‘I let her go because I didn’t think that there was anything suspicious at the time.’ Marks was immediately on the defensive, his voice less authoritative as his confidence waned slightly.
Saxon paused before responding. ‘That wasn’t very clever, was it? Tell my DS over there and he’ll take her details so that we can get in touch with her.’ Parker looked across and nodded, acknowledging that he had heard the conversation.
‘Would you please show me where the body is, and I trust you haven’t touched anything?’
‘No, not a thing, Commander, it is all as I found it.’ Marks was clearly offended. ‘We may not get many murders down here in Sewel Mill, but I do know…’
‘Yes, thank you, Doctor.’ Saxon asked Marks to leave the cottage and wait outside for the scene-of-crime officers to arrive. Marks seemed slightly put out at being dismissed in such a cursory fashion. He had expected to accompany the commander upstairs so that the latter could benefit from expert medical advice. Marks was even more aggrieved that Saxon had given him such a minor role to play. How many times was he going to have to give his story? Somewhat reluctantly, he complied.
Saxon went back to his car and rummaged around in the glove compartment for a pair of plastic covers for his shoes. Properly clad for the task, he started his examination.
The doormat was clinically clean and it didn’t take him long to realise that inside the cottage all of the surfaces, painted, brass or glass were also spotless. Too clean. Mrs Hayward hadn’t even started to tidy up, but the place was as clean as an operating theatre. The only signs of human habitation were the teacups waiting to be washed up on the draining board, from Mrs Hayward’s tea break with Marks, and the teapot still on the table.
This looked far from promising.
Monday, May 6, Conquest Hospital Mortuary, Brighton, 11.30AM
Jake Dalton was on automatic. He knew what he was doing and he mostly worked with good people, people he could trust. Much as he enjoyed his work, he was a million miles away right now, reliving the flights at the weekend. The weather had been brilliant and he’d clocked up four hours of gliding time.
Melanie Jones interrupted his reverie. ‘Jake,’ she said, apparently for the second or third time, judging by the tone of her voice. ‘It’s got to be you or Dr Clarke.’ She paused expectantly. When he looked at her blankly, she went on. ‘One of you is going to have to say something to him.’ She sounded exasperated.
‘Sorry, Mel,’ he answered. ‘Who are we talking about? What’s the problem?’
‘He stinks.’ She was disgusted.
‘Not Steve again,’ Jake said, despondently. Steve Tucker was the fly in the ointment, the bane of his life. His working life anyway. They all hated working with him.
‘I’ll swear he hasn’t been near soap and hot water for weeks, and we just can’t stand it anymore.’
Most of the female staff, particularly the younger ones, found his presence uncomfortable. There was an unspoken pact not to leave each other alone with him, if it could possibly be avoided.
Melanie was particularly anti-Steve. It was because he never seemed to have enough room to pass her by. The gaps were always too tight – he always had to squeeze
past, rubbing against her as he went. Sometimes he stood right up against her when making tea in the little kitchen. Of course, she moved away immediately. She verbalised her annoyance often, telling him to go fuck himself, but Steve, thinking that he was being witty and clever, merely grinned and suggested that she loved it, and waggled his tongue up and down suggestively.
Complaints were frequently made about his behaviour, but they were overlooked by the powers that be, since finding people prepared to do that kind of job was not an easy task, and the candidates weren’t exactly queuing up at the door. Therefore, Steve kept his job, although Melanie and the others knew he should have been sacked. They knew their rights. They knew what constituted gross misconduct, and he was a frequent offender.
‘Okay, okay,’ Jake nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have a word.’ The clouds and the sunshine were far away already.
Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 11.40AM
‘Thank you, Mr Killer, sir, for being so thorough. Fucking waste of time this is turning out to be,’ Saxon muttered under his breath. ‘But we’re going to keep looking anyway, you bastard, because maybe you weren’t as thorough as you thought you were.’ Saxon was prone to talking to himself when he was truly focused. Even when people could overhear what he was saying. ‘So you know what you’re doing, do you? You know how to cover your tracks, eh? You’re good, but how good? I wonder. How good are you?’
He was thinking about the two other murders that Marks had referred to. Both had taken place recently and within fifteen miles of Sewel Mill. The other two also involved single men, living on their own, who had been murdered in their homes.
David Crowley, a retired headmaster, had been found on March 12, when a neighbour raised the alarm. He was discovered sitting in his armchair, as if watching television. His neck had been broken.
Rupert Hall was a male nurse, who was reported missing on April 10 by his personnel manager at the Conquest Hospital. He had failed to turn up for work for three days in a row and nobody could reach him at home. He was found stretched out on his sofa, with headphones still on. His neck had also been broken.
When news of Janson’s death came in earlier that morning to New Scotland Yard, with the preliminary report of a broken neck, Saxon decided to look at this one personally. Hence, the drive back down to Sussex. This was looking very much like a serial killer. There were other similarities too. All three bodies had been positioned to appear as natural deaths. The only difference was that Christopher Janson was in bed, Rupert Hall was on his sofa, and David Crowley was in his armchair. All were over fifty.
The other two were homosexuals. Hall was well and truly out of the closet and was something of a character around the hospital during shifts he worked. He was also a leading light in the social whirl of Brighton’s thriving gay nightlife.
Crowley, on the other hand, was still firmly tucked away in his closet. They found plenty of evidence at home of his sexual preferences. It was something they would have to look into as far as Janson was concerned. God forbid that they should have a killer of gay men on the loose. The tabloids would have a field day.
In both the other cases, there was no forensic evidence of the killer and little or no evidence even of the killer’s presence, apart from the body of the deceased, that is. As for motive, they were still looking for links between the two men, and now they would add Janson to the equation.
Monday, May 6, Anvil Wood House, Sewel Mill, 12.15PM
Babs Jenner was sitting down to an early lunch. She’d had a busy morning, but it had all been paperwork, which she didn’t mind at all. She enjoyed being organised. One of us has to be! She smiled as she tucked into home-made soup.
They had been almost fully booked over the weekend. No classes were scheduled until the late afternoon on Mondays though, thank goodness. She liked children well enough, but the noise they made was extraordinary. The horses were well used to it though and patiently endured the endless circuits. Babs was thinking of getting one of the stable girls to do more of the lessons. Her various business ventures were doing well and she was sure they could afford it.
Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 12.15PM
‘Boss, you up there?’ Detective Sergeant Guy Parker called from the bottom of the stairs.
‘Yes, come up carefully, Parker, don’t touch anything or you’ll be checking parking tickets…forever…without overtime, and certainly with no chance of parole.’
Parker was also moved to talk to himself from time to time.
‘And that, my friends, was from chapter one of the Ladybird guide to “Instructions for Behaviour Appropriate to a Crime Scene” and we are very grateful indeed for the refresher course, aren’t we boys and girls?’ he muttered beneath his breath, as he started climbing the stairs.
As he did so, he glanced out of the window next to the front door and saw Dr Marks, and realised immediately that Saxon’s remark had been made as much for the education of Dr Marks, as much as for Parker himself. He smiled to himself. That doctor was a pain in the arse, far too precious for Parker’s liking.
Parker was a beanpole. He was fair-haired, twenty-eight years old and balding rapidly, with a big nose that pointed up and out at the same time. He resembled someone who was continually being led around with a meat hook up his nose. This didn’t go unnoticed among his colleagues, and canteen-ridicule culture in the police force is not only without mercy but relentless. Consequently, Parker was frequently referred to as “Nosy Parker”. No one would say this directly to his face though. He was known to have a temper, and a bit of rank, which he was more than happy to use when required.
Saxon handed him a plastic bag containing an address book. ‘When that has been checked for prints and DNA, I want you to get it photocopied, then get the team to phone everyone in it.’
‘Little black book, eh? Full of girlfriends is it?’ Parker asked.
‘Well, that’s what I want you to check out for me, Sergeant, so maybe you’ll get lucky.’ Saxon pointed at the bag. ‘Just get on with it and have some respect for the recently deceased.’
‘Sorry, boss. Anything else?’
‘Yes, you can make a note of all the framed awards on the landing. I want to know where and when Mr Janson was employed for the last umpteen years. Not only that, I also want to know who he worked with and for – could be a jealousy thing, could be an old vendetta. Long shot though, I doubt it will lead us anywhere. And check out for a will. Some of those paintings are not bad at all. Perhaps he has other stuff to pass on to a relative or friend. Maybe someone couldn’t wait.
‘Also, get on to traffic and check if they were in the area taking random number plates.’ Saxon paused for breath.
‘I’ve already checked that out, boss, there was a squad car in the area, but they weren’t checking plates.’
‘Shit, you’re kidding – bring back the old days. What do they do all night – sit in side streets and stuff their faces with pizza? At least it might have given us something useful, rather than fuck all. And where is sodding SOCO?’
Monday, May 6, Conquest Hospital Bus Stop, Brighton, 12.35PM
Tucker was livid as he approached the bus stop at some speed. Two people were waiting and they both looked up in surprise as he strode up, muttering to himself loudly. ‘Fuckin’ bastard! Who’s he think he is? Fuckin’ arsehole, that’s what.’ He glared at his prospective fellow passengers, an elderly man and a middle-aged woman. They both recoiled. His face was almost purple with rage.
‘What right does he ’ave to go on at me about me personal high jeans an’ stuff?’ He was still marching back and forth. The elderly man looked at the middle-aged woman and they both backed away from Tucker and towards each other.
‘Go ’ome and fuckin’ wash ’e said!’ Tucker pointed his armpit indignantly at the couple. They withdrew further.
Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 12.45PM
Guy Parker was on his hands and knees on the top landing, painstakingly listin
g the details of each of the awards on display. He was fervently wishing that Janson hadn’t been quite as successful.
Saxon glanced at him as he went back to the bedroom. He considered Parker to be an excellent police officer and, when necessary, reliable and tough. He was streetwise in a way that Saxon knew he himself wasn’t, or not to the same extent. If a situation got a bit heavy, Parker was definitely one to have on your side. Not only did he have the height, he was also fit and wiry. Not many people could’ve gotten close enough to Parker to land a punch, even if they’d had the bad sense to try in the first place. Saxon once pictured him as a gibbon on steroids, an image that had stuck in his mind subsequently. But he’d never mentioned this to him.
Parker wasn’t one to seek out trouble though. The vibes he gave off were sufficient. His appearance meant that he very rarely had to use the physical prowess people just assumed he had. He was married with two children, a fact that often played on his mind. When a police officer died in the line of duty, the newspapers always described the deceased as “married with two children”. Never three, or one, it always seemed to be two.
Parker smiled, as always, at the thought of his kids. This case would mean more time away from home, while he stayed at a police house in Brighton rather than commuting daily back to South London. He didn’t mind. Working sixteen-hour days meant that he would hardly have seen them anyway, so it made sense to be close by. He’d make a point of calling home in the early evening, when they were home from school and just after they’d had their tea.
He and Lynne had a routine that worked well. He talked to both boys about their day, and had a few minutes with her on the phone afterwards. She accepted the lot of a detective’s wife without complaint. That was a rare thing, in Parker’s experience, and something for which he was eternally grateful. The call home, though brief, was the highlight of his day, followed closely by their exchange of emails.
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