Saxon looked up to see Parker standing in the doorway holding a plastic evidence bag containing a single surgical glove.
‘Found it stuffed inside a roll of paper kitchen towel. Correct me if I’m wrong but they usually come in pairs, I believe.’
‘You’re right, but why hide it there – if I were him I’d have thrown it away,’ said Saxon, looking surprised.
Parker thought for a moment. ‘He may have overlooked it at the time, and thought we would find it in his rubbish bags and decided to dump it later, in a public trash bin somewhere.’
‘Could be,’ said Saxon, looking at a long and well-stocked bookcase. ‘Have a look through that lot when you get through with the kitchen – see if there’s any homophobic stuff – you know, right-wing Nazi crap, that sort of thing.’
‘Yes, sir…I think we have a visitor,’ Parker said, looking out of the window. ‘Dr Clarke on the starboard bow.’
Saxon sighed. ‘Shit, I don’t really want to see anyone at this moment in time.’ But he was left with no choice.
Clarke appeared at the door. His voice boomed. ‘Paul, I won’t come in, I see you’re busy. What’s all this I hear about you arresting my assistant? Can’t be true, good solid bloke, what evidence have you got?’ Clarke trampled over anyone’s chances of speaking in his usual manner until he decided that he had finished.
Saxon didn’t need this. ‘Hold up there, Richard, I wouldn’t have arrested him unless I had good reason, and believe me, I think we have him dead in the water. Good forensics and not too much circumstantial. I will need to talk to you in the next few days, Richard, I trust you aren’t thinking of going off anywhere for a while.’
‘Oh good heavens, am I a suspect as well, is it open season on pathologists?’
‘No, of course not, don’t worry, Richard. I’ll just need to talk to you about Jake, that’s all. His behaviour lately – anything you may have noticed. But right now I have to get on with my job here, so if you will excuse me.’
‘No problem, Paul, I’m at your disposal any time you want.’
Clarke left as abruptly as he appeared, and Saxon turned to Parker. ‘Please go and tell the two constables who are supposedly guarding the door, that when I say keep people out I mean it. And spit venom as you say it.’
Parker went downstairs and Saxon heard his voice clearly telling them that, ‘There isn’t a body so we don’t need a pathologist,’ followed by some remarks about demotion and traffic wardens. Parker did have a way with words when required.
Wednesday, June12, 8.30AM
Jake sat in the interview room, looking totally bewildered. A fixed expression of disbelief deeply etched on his face. His solicitor, Sarah Wright, looked cool and composed, apart from her hands clasped tightly on the desk. Saxon and Parker walked in and sat down in front of them. As he flicked the switch to start the tape recorder, his mobile phone started to ring. He stopped the tape and apologised, although Ms Wright was not pleased – showing her displeasure with an icy glare. Saxon chose to ignore her; she was young and inexperienced at glaring. He answered his phone.
He looked at Parker, who had sensed the seriousness of the call by the look on Saxon’s face. He sat listening for some moments, taking notes. He thanked the caller and hung up.
“Sorry, I’m going to suspend this very short meeting for a while. Seems we have another body – in London again. I’m going to have to keep you on remand, while I take a look at the evidence…Have you been to London lately, Jake?’
Ms Wright put her hand on Jake’s arm and said with a frown on her face. ‘You don’t have to answer any questions, bearing in mind the tape is not running and this is no longer a formal interview.’
Jake leant forward towards Saxon. ‘You know I didn’t do it, you know I’m not a killer, don’t you?’ He looked Saxon in the eye as he spoke.
‘Jake, I’ve known you some time now, and I have to say you always struck me as being a completely sane sort of person. But a shrink told me recently that when I catch whoever it is committing these crimes he will appear completely normal. You fit that part of the profile. We have good strong evidence against you – the fact that you have no alibis for any of the killings, is in itself, very damning for you. If you are innocent, then it’s downright incredible, I would say unheard of in criminal history.’
Saxon stood up and walked to the door, he turned back and looked towards Jake and his solicitor.
‘I have to go and look at a body now. We’ll continue this interview on Friday.’
Saxon and Parker drove to London and parked outside the house in Bottle Walk, where Mrs Lyons had discovered the body of Fabio Gerard. As usual, there were people in white overalls, taking photographs, and others lifting fingerprints and taking samples of almost everything. Saxon spoke to sergeants Brian Anderson and Jim Groves. They told him that Mrs Lyons, the cleaner, had returned after a few days off to find Monsieur Fabio Gerard lying there with an acute case of shortness of breath. A joke that Saxon didn’t find at all funny at the time…later, maybe.
Saxon wandered around the room and muttered, ‘Dog walkers and cleaning ladies, maybe they’re the ones we should be after,’ but no one heard him.
He stood in the middle of the room and addressed the team who were working the scene. ‘Right, listen up, you lot. I don’t want any mistakes; I know you are the best in the country. Probably in the known universe, come to think of it. But I have to tell you that we have a man in custody.’
A subdued cheer went up, mingled with a few shouts of ‘Yes!’
‘Okay, settle down, and remember, if we are to make the evidence stick, it has to be solid. I want no room for doubt. Understand? Good…get on with it, and find me something, if you can’t find anything then for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone see you planting it.’ There was a general grunt of approval from the team before they continued with their work.
Parker had located Mrs Lyons; she had fled next door to call the police, and drink tea to calm her nerves. Saxon found her in a state of near collapse, trembling and about to start demolishing a large glass of whisky. He stopped her – saying that he needed her to have a clear head while she answered his questions. She reluctantly agreed.
The neighbours, Mr and Mrs McCormack, a young married couple, sat in the corner on a sofa overawed by what was unfolding before them.
Saxon sat down beside Mrs Lyons and gently put his hand on hers. He spoke softly, hoping this would calm her down.
‘Mrs Lyons, I know that this has been a terrible shock for you, but as usual in situations like this, questions have to be asked. Please tell me, in your own time, exactly how you left things next door. By that I mean, how was Fabio when you last saw him – did he seem edgy or different in any way?’
‘I left here last Wednesday, just for a few days off. He seemed to be okay. Quite capable of looking after himself, he was. And, no, he didn’t seem at all edgy; not at all, he was his normal self. He was such a lovely man, queer as hell but that didn’t matter to me, I don’t care what people get up to – nothing to do with me anyway.’ She paused and gazed at the large whisky waiting to be of medicinal use to someone.
She added. ‘Poor Chris, that’s Chris with a “K”, they are hairdressers you see – apparently you can do that with your name if you’re a hairdresser. He’s out of the country at the moment, on business in America; he’s going to be so upset. Do you think I should phone him? He said I should call him if there were any problems.’ She started to cry so Saxon handed her some tissues.
‘Don’t you worry about that, Mrs Lyons, we’ll take care of it for you. Now, have you noticed anyone hanging around lately, or have you had callers saying that they are looking for someone who you have never heard of, for instance?’
She controlled her tears and offered Saxon the tissue she had used. He let her keep it.
‘I wouldn’t notice if there was someone watching from the street because of the bushes. You can’t see through them during the summer because the le
aves are too thick, and no one has called that I know of.’
‘Okay, you are doing very well, Mrs Lyons. When you found Fabio, did you enter the house?’
‘You must be kidding; I nearly wet myself when I saw him lying there. I opened the door and reached in to put the light on – I always do that in case there’s someone behind the door. I’ve always done it, call me silly if you want, it’s just a habit of mine.’
Saxon smiled at her. He was relieved that she hadn’t entered the house. If only other people were more cautious, less chance of the crime scene being spoiled.
‘I don’t think you are silly, Mrs Lyons – I’m just glad that you stayed away from any evidence that may have been lying around.’
Jim Groves appeared in the doorway holding a sample bag containing a tape cassette. ‘Found this wedged behind the door, Commander, it may be just a music tape but you never know.’
Mrs Lyons looked up with a puzzled frown on her face. ‘I can assure you that if there isn’t a label on it, then it doesn’t belong to Kris. He’s very methodical about things like that, and I wouldn’t have left it on the floor. I’m a professional cleaner; I don’t leave things lying around. I’m very particular about things like that, I’ll have you know.’
Saxon stood up and walked towards Groves.
‘Any prints on it?
‘None, it’s like new, sir.’
‘Let’s play it and see what delights it holds. Mr McCormack, do you have a tape machine that we can use for a moment?’
Mr McCormack took him to the hi-fi, and Saxon pushed the tape in and set it to play. Nothing happened for the first ten seconds, then the same mechanical voice as the Mancini message.
Dear Boss,
Me again. The policeman in the pub was a mistake, he should not have been there. He knew me and I had no choice but to kill him. I cannot be blamed. I am told what to do by the voice of the master. I have no control over what I am told. You can tell his family that he wasn’t a fucking queer. I think he decided to go bounty hunting, and look for me on his own. A very foolish thing to do. It was not my fault. He walked in at the wrong moment. He was not meant to be next.
They stood in silence for a moment to make sure there was nothing else on the tape. Saxon rewound it and placed it back in the bag. He thanked Mrs Lyons and paid another brief visit to the crime scene, and then he and Parker drove back to Brighton with the tape.
They hardly spoke during the journey. Neither of them could remember such an eventful and stressful day.
Chapter 13
Thursday, June13, 7.20PM
Steve Tucker sauntered along the seafront with a smile on his face. He had several reasons to be happy. Jake Dalton had been arrested for murder – this made Jake a celebrity, which in turn made Tucker one too because he knew him; worked with him, no less.
Tucker was on his way to meet his friend Lee Fry, who was a small, bald and painfully thin man, unfortunately for him. Like Tucker, school had been a dreadful experience for Lee. Children being often quite cruel, the inevitable nickname was soon to rear its head, “Small Fry”. As nicknames go this was not so bad, especially to the kids who were called “Shithead” or “Arse Face”.
Fry didn’t care about the other children; he was an only child and only really cared about number one. He still lived with his parents, who were now retired – living on a council housing estate on the north edge of Brighton. He had known Tucker for most of his life; they were in the same class at school and shared the same interests – sex, drugs and booze. Both of them were frequently hauled up in front of the headmaster, literally because they were incapable of walking – being either stoned out of their skulls or drunk.
Tucker was planning to meet Fry at a pub called the Old Ship. It was a “Goth” pub: you weren’t allowed in unless you wore a combination of black or black, with the usual leather and silver rings, either through your ears, nose or nipples. The less visible piercings didn’t count. The place was patronised by art and university students, and had a reputation for being a “hard” pub. But with modern youngsters, a fight usually constituted a bit of slapping and some bad language.
The hard reputation was gained during the 50s and 60s when gangs of Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers fought their battles on the beach, briefly stopping to tank up in the pub. Then back to the beach to slash a few more of the enemy with a flick knife or flog them with a bicycle chain.
Tucker arrived to see people standing on the pavement drinking. The place was throbbing. This was heaven for Tucker – he saw it as a chance to squeeze through the mass of bodies to get to the bar. He thought to himself that an orgasm followed by a nice cool lager was what he needed after a long day “at the office” as he called it. However, this little pleasure of his was not without risk.
Tucker was well-known at this pub; the regulars didn’t like the smell of him, and they, like the people he worked with, were naturally suspicious of him.
Tucker thrust his way through the mass of drinkers, attracting some shocked glances from almost every woman he came into contact with. A few of the men scowled at him as well. Possibly something to do with the way he used his groin. He was smirking by the time he got through.
He found Fry sitting in a corner on his own. Lee Fry was similar to Tucker in many ways – not physically, but they shared an almost identical IQ. Unfortunately for them, two low IQ’s didn’t make a genius. This was a fact that puzzled Fry from time to time.
He was born in Liverpool, but his parents moved south when he was seven years old; he was there long enough to pick up the accent. But he didn’t remember much else. For years, he had listened to stories from his father about the early hard years back up north; he used it to get sympathy by stating that he never had the chances that other people had.
Apart from being stupid, his main handicap was drink. The planet earth didn’t have enough of the stuff to satisfy his thirst. The one thing that slowed down his drinking was lack of coordination – due to drunkenness. His sexual preferences were similar to Tucker’s, but only if money was due to change hands. He had several convictions for gross indecency. He viewed that as a rather unfortunate occupational hazard.
Tucker flopped into the seat next to Fry. They nodded to each other – not smiling, they were being cool and manly. To the disgust of the people around them, they blatantly eyed up the women nearest to their table. Until that is, the men who were with the women made it obvious that to continue would be dangerous for them, and could even have an effect on the style of wheelchair they would have to choose several weeks hence.
‘Don’t like this fuckin’ place,’ said Tucker, as he finished his pint noisily, slurping down the last dregs.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ grunted Fry, looking at Tucker under heavy eyelids – he was at least four pints ahead of his friend.
‘Fuckin’ tarts aren’t friendly.’
‘They never are with you – wanker.’
‘Why is that, Lee? I’m the same as anyone else, ain’t I?’ said Tucker, with genuine puzzlement in his voice.
‘Yeah, mate, but you do stink a bit, don’t ya?’
‘I don’t fuckin’ stink, you drunken fucker, I ’ave a bath every now and then – even if I don’t need it.’
‘You stink of death, probably from where you work; but you stink of sweat all the time anyway. So the death stink adds to it, dunnit?’ Fry wasn’t exactly expecting an answer. And one was not forthcoming. He tried to explain further. ‘I mean, no tart in her right mind is going to want some smelly git like you stinkin’ of death an’ sweat givin’ her one an’ slobberin’ all over her, is she?’
‘Bitches don’t know what they’re missing,’ Tucker threw in, before forcing his way through the crowd to get another couple of pints.
They drank and smoked and openly leered until closing time and were the last to be asked to leave the pub. The landlord was firm but polite to them – after all, they, with their regular drinking, paid more than enough for his once-a-year trip
to Majorca. And though there were other regulars to the pub, these two were the fastest drinkers he had ever come across in his life.
They staggered from the pub to the beach, which was well lit. It was a full moon and, like children, they threw stones into the waves, then they threw them at each other until it hurt too much. A couple of times they misjudged the size of the waves as they broke on the beach, and their shoes filled up with water. Although the temperature of the air was high, the seawater, as usual around the coast of Britain, was not particularly warm.
When their feet became uncomfortable, they climbed up the beach to the sea wall, sat down, looked at the pier and smoked. The youth of Brighton was still out and about, couples walked on the beach holding hands and a few lay on the beach courting – a few had gone beyond that stage and were practicing egg fertilisation.
Tucker was the first to speak. ‘I think I’m turnin’ full-time normally sexualised – I’ve like started to notice strange things about meself. I don’t fancy blokes any more. Know what I mean?’
‘No,’ said Fry looking the other way.
‘What do you mean, no? You’re fuckin’ thick as pig shit, you are.’
Fry looked at his friend aghast. ‘Me…thick, give me a fuckin’ break. I remember when you bought that E tablet from the bloke in the disco…Steve, an M&M sweet turned sideways don’t make it into an E tablet for Christ’s sake. Twenty fuckin’ quid for a sweet…no wonder he told you not to chew it – you’d have found the fuckin’ peanut if you had, you bleedin’ tosser. Anyway, I’m not thick, I’m dislaxtic – or somethin’ like that, well, that’s what they told me anyway. You’ve always been a bit bent you dick ’ed, you don’t just get over it like that,’ Fry said with a look of authority. ‘It’s not like guts ache yer daft git. Anyway, what’s brought this on – your periods stopped or somethin’?’
‘Funny man, bleedin’ wanker,’ said Tucker quietly, looking the other way, trying to cultivate an air of mystery by letting the smoke escape from his nostrils slowly. The effect was lost due to the fit of coughing it induced.
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