An Urgent Murder

by Alex Winchester

  “She sleeps like a log. I knocked a glass over the first night. She never twitched.”

  Simon found the hatch and opened it, and called loudly to Alison, who just turned in her sleep.

  Then he shouted, “Alison.”

  It garnered a sleepy reply, “What?”

  “Wake up.”

  She slowly sat up on the bed. “Who’s that?”

  “Who the hell do you think it is; Santa Claus?”

  “Simon. You rotten bastard. You’ve left me here to rot. Wait till I get hold of you.”

  “Alison, I have some bad news” and he told her that she had to stay where she was for the time being, and quickly blamed the fact on her Father.

  She was wide awake now and told Simon precisely what she thought of her Father and exactly what she thought of him.

  Simon said, “Look, we have to go now.”

  She butted in, “Who is with you?”

  He willingly named John knowing her rancour would be quickly transferred. She then obliged as she let it be known what she thought of him too.

  John said, “I did bring a large bar of chocolate, but if that’s your attitude, I’ll keep it.”

  Demanding it be passed to her, she said she would reconsider her opinion of him if it tasted alright. He pushed the bar through the open hatch, and they said their farewells, and left.

  Retracing their route back to the car in silence without incident, they removed their camouflage clothing, and got into the vehicle. Once inside, they felt confident enough to discuss Alison’s predicament. It was obvious to them that the kidnappers had spent a fair amount of time preparing the outhouse and building the room inside the barn. As a result, they believed without a doubt that she was not in any imminent physical danger, but agreed that Simon should keep a close eye on her, and visit her once a night if possible. If a safe place could be established during the day, Simon should try to identify all the kidnappers.

  He drove back into Chichester, dropping John off at the Police Station, and then carrying on to the Nuffield hospital on the main road north out of the city. Simon swung into the entrance and went to the car park at the rear which for some reason had no CCTV. There was a dozen or so other cars parked and the Lexus looked as though it belonged there. As he walked out of the grounds, he was caught for a fraction of a second on one of the many CCTV cameras inside the hospital itself. Turning left onto the main road, he jogged the mile and a half round the back streets to Alison’s flat noting that there was no surveillance.

  As he got to the door, Hannibal joined him, and they went in together.

  Simon said, “Now I wonder who fed you tonight?”

  A soft voice from within the lounge said, “How did you know?”

  “I can smell the recently opened tin. Nice to see you again Barry.”

  “You’ve still got it.”

  *

  John was troubled, but not for Alison. The sight of the disappearing van on an isolated pot holed desolate road to nowhere in the middle of the night now commanded his full attention.

  ‘Where had it been? Where was it going? Had it been downloading video from an unsuspecting potential victim? Was someone in grave danger? Worst still: was someone lying on the floor breathing their last?’

  Dumping his badly folded camouflage clothing back into the boot of his car and replacing his accessories in their respective receptacles he walked to the back door of the Police Station and tapped his ID on the reader. The gentle click of the door lock releasing allowed him entry to the practically deserted station and he climbed the stairs wearily to the top floor and punched in the numerical code to open the secured office door. Collapsing into the first chair, he fired up Paul’s computer. Not being very proficient with some of the systems, he managed quite quickly, amazing himself in the process, to get the Sussex Police mapping system to load.

  Searching the locale, John soon found the barn where Alison was resident. The mapping didn’t display the compacted earth track leading to it from the side road, but it did reveal it was at a confluence of four fields and was doubtlessly used by a farmer originally to store equipment or fodder. Some half mile distant to the rear were drainage ditches and a small rife which formed boundaries to other fields. John checked the surrounding area and saw no houses within a one and a half-mile radius, but noticed the small church at the junction with Pagham Road.

  The pot holed side road was not a short cut, nor did it really help getting to or from any specific places as there was a faster straighter route. It seemed to be ostensibly just a detour into the countryside ‘Perhaps the original road prior to the new one being constructed decades ago.’ John saw the van must have entered it from Lower Bognor Road and would exit onto Pagham Road in the direction of Chichester and would just cut out the junction of the two at the Royal Oak Pub: one of his favourites. John manoeuvred the mouse panning in and then out and then all around the area to no avail. The van could have come from Bognor and could have been going to Chichester or beyond. It was anyone’s guess.

  John turned off the Sussex mapping and opened an internet search engine bringing up Google Earth. He opened the street view facility with the resolution as large as possible and slowly surveyed the route that the van had taken along the pot holed road. Then he followed the logical faster route from the junction where the van had turned off. Lingering on the Royal Oak, he admired the simple flower decked frontage and the large car park, where he often left his car, that was always full in the evenings. Following the road to the junction where the van had re-joined it, nothing stood out. ‘Why had the van taken the pot holed road?’ The answer evaded him. He looked at the time on the bottom of the screen and saw it was the middle of the night and turned the computer off without shutting it down and went home to bed.

  He awoke with the answer!

  By 7am, he was in the canteen sitting in his usual seat at his normal table. The cook, who liked John because he always referred to her as a chef, called to him. He cheerily acknowledged her question and she set about preparing his usual breakfast. Just a few hours’ sleep had done wonders for his thoughts. At eight o’clock, he was going to be seeing the helpful Sergeant Murray.

  79

  Sunday 12th June 2011

  Simon had said goodbye and goodnight to Barry nearly two hours after his arrival at the flat, and a bottle of good chardonnay courtesy, unknowingly, of Alison. Barry needed to leave during the hours of darkness for his own safety as well as Simon’s. Revelations by him about what he had been doing and who for was enough to make Simon exceedingly more apprehensive. So when he went to bed with a contented Hannibal curled up asleep next to his feet, the chair wedging the front door was just an additional precaution. He slept fitfully constantly thinking of Alison and how he had grown to like her, and how he would not allow anything untoward to befall her.

  Normally he would have gone jogging first thing in the morning, but he needed as much sleep as possible for the upcoming events. Likelihood being that sleep in the next couple of days was not going to be available. Also, should anyone still be about watching, the change in routine would give the impression that he was frightened. Hannibal was the first to rise at about 7.30am, which was considerably later than usual, and Simon was left in no doubt by the animal that he should also be up and providing it with food. An open tin of cat food smelt even worse in the morning than in the middle of the night, although Hannibal did not seem to object.

  Simon conducted his ablutions, and was inexplicably drawn to check the parking space at the end of the road. No sign of the van, which he expected, but in its place was a bronze BMW with someone slouched down in the driver’s seat. So, he thought, someone, probably the smaller of his tormentors, did not buy his act of cowardice. It was going to pose a problem that would take him well over the best part of a day for him to resolve completely. Then he would have free reign to do what he wanted unhindered.

  The taxi arrived in the cul-de-sac at 9.30am, and as is the way of most cabbies, he
lent on the horn for about ten seconds without a care for any night workers just meeting Morpheus or late sleepers still in his arms. To get out and go to a door and ring the bell or knock had been foreign to them since the introduction of the hansom cab. Simon opened the door and acknowledged the din: gently used his foot to kick a reluctant Hannibal out: picked up his bag, locked the door and went down the steps and into the back seat of the taxi. In the BMW, Petrovski was in no doubt that Simon was leaving never to return.

  He contacted the smaller man by use of one of Barry’s provided walkie talkie radios, and told him what he had seen. Then listening intently, he sulkily agreed to follow and report further. Rattling noisily, the taxi turned round and set off for Chichester railway station with the BMW in pursuit and making no attempt at all of remaining incognito. Simon knew he was still being followed and was happy that the cab was so slow that his Mother could have kept up the pace. While he was paying the taxi driver he unconcernedly watched the BMW stop at the rear of the taxi rank. Then with his bag over his shoulder he walked into the ticket office and joined the short queue.

  As his turn arrived, he loudly asked for a single one-way ticket to Crawley. To insure he had been overheard, he asked if one had to change at Horsham to get to Crawley. The woman in the ticket office looked at him curiously as she confirmed it was not necessary. Moving towards the platform, he studiously made a determined effort not to look at Petrovski who was still in the same suit and tie, and looking awkward in the ticket office.

  Simon stood motionless on the platform staring inexorably across the tracks at the opposite platform’s waiting room windows. He could just make out the reflection in them that disclosed Petrovski the gorilla was on a mobile phone and gesticulating wildly with one hand. As the call was terminated Petrovski put the phone into his pocket and looked up at the departure boards. It took him a while to work out when the train was leaving, and Simon watched him speak to the ticket collector at the barrier, before hurriedly leaving the station.

  Strolling nonchalantly back to the ticket barrier, Simon said to the same collector, “Did you tell that large man what time the train gets to Crawley?”

  The ticket collector glared spitefully at him, “Yes, and if he is a friend of yours, you might like to teach him some manners. Rude was not the word for him.”

  “No, he isn’t a friend” and Simon went back along the platform to wait.

  Petrovski was on his way to Crawley twenty-five minutes before Simon’s train even entered the station.

  By fluke, the train was a fast one to Horsham where it was joined to another couple of carriages before travelling on to Crawley. Simon knew that the car park at the station was on the same side as the arrival platform for his train. He’d lived in the area for nearly all his adult life and knew the layout of the station inside out. When he alighted, he crossed the footbridge to exit the station at the opposite platform and walk down a small passage to a residential road. He walked slowly as he descended the footbridge and soon glimpsed Petrovski who was watching him from the car park. The mobile phone was again clamped to his ear, and he was still gesticulating wildly with his spare hand. There was no chance of Petrovski getting back to his car and finding his way around to the residential road before he had disappeared. Simon smiled as he watched Petrovski start to run towards his car in the vain hope of seeing him again. Not a chance in hell.

  80

  Sunday 12th June 2011

  Sergeant Murray was ‘miles away’ head down shuffling and scrutinising papers as he made his way towards the briefing room from his office when John collared him and asked to see him as soon as he could in private.

  “I’ve got to brief the local city’s officers before I send them out to their respective patrol areas. I’ll speed it up if you want to wait in my office?”

  “If I could, it would help.” John waited patiently for him in one of the flimsy metal chairs with his eyes closed but with his mind working overtime. After twenty minutes, a flustered Murray burst into his own office muttering apologies for the time he had taken, plonked himself in his comfy chair and asked how he could help.

  “Something is bothering me about the automatic number plate reader cameras. I’m only thinking specifically of the ones scattered about Sussex. Am I right in thinking that their locations are not disclosed to the general public?”

  “That’s right. Further to that: they are not disclosed as a matter of course to Police Officers and even if they were, there are too many to remember.”

  “Can you get their locations from the internet?”

  “Not to my knowledge: no. Mind you, it’s changing daily.”

  “If someone knew where all the cameras were: could they travel from one place to another without passing any of them?”

  Murray put his hands together as though in prayer but rested his chin on his fingertips. He pondered his answer carefully not to be rushed.

  “Mostly, I think the answer would be Yes. There are probably some journeys that a vehicle would take that it just could not avoid passing one of them. To know and remember every location though, even in Sussex, would be impossible. Then of course, you would have to know every back street to avoid them.”

  The two men sat in an unembarrassed silence. Seconds moved to minutes. Neither moved. John had his eyes closed as he was deep in thought considering several scenarios. Murray just watched him. His eyes flicked open.

  “OK. Changing tack slightly. Do the cameras take images of the front or rear of the vehicles?”

  “It basically depends on which way the camera is facing. It doesn’t matter which side of the road the camera is on.”

  “My next question then is; do they take a picture of every vehicle as it passes?”

  “They certainly do. Every vehicle that passes has its photo taken showing the index plate be it front or back. Some cameras even show who the driver is. With a given index number, it is possible to search not only the Sussex cameras, but everyone in the country showing exactly which camera was passed, where and when. You can practically say where any vehicle was at any given time if it was on the move.”

  “Right. Here’s the scenario. A white van has possibly travelled for a short distance somewhere on the A27 between Arundel and Chichester. The index number is not known, but the back of it may: no, definitely can be identified. So only cameras showing the back view are worth checking. Is that a possibility?”

  Murray looked astonished.

  “Do you know how many white vans must travel between Arundel and Chichester? Hundreds if not thousands.” Turning to his keyboard, he tapped away and said, “It won’t take long to identify all the cameras taking images of the rear of vehicles, but to check them all for a white van could take days, if not weeks. How sure are you that it’s travelled on the A27?”

  “I’m not. I’m guessing it went that way.”

  “I see. It’s a lot of man hours for a guess.”

  “If I could tell you the date and say a one hour time slot, would that speed it up?”

  “Certainly. It still may take a day or two especially if it’s in the rush hours.”

  “No. It’s between 1am and 2am.”

  John wrote the date and time on a memo pad and handed it to Murray.

  “That would make it even quicker. I’ll crack on with it today and see how far I get and let you know later.”

  “Thanks Murray. I’ll be in the office most of the day.”

  As John was opening the door to leave, Murray said as if an afterthought, “I suppose if the entire camera locations were loaded onto a computer and superimposed onto a map, the computer could possibly be programmed by a competent operator to give a route that would avoid them.”

  “Now that would be very interesting.”

  As he climbed the stairs, John thought that would be a truly useful piece of kit to add to his car’s Sat Nav.

  He spent the rest of the day reading the file and chatting to Paul and Doreen about the case, even continuing over lun
ch. Alison was mentioned in passing by Paul, and John told them it was some sort of stomach bug that was keeping her away. Eventually, mid-afternoon, Murray called him and said there were three cameras that showed the rear of vehicles as they passed. The first was just outside Arundel near the White Swan Public House, the next was prior to the roundabout at Fontwell and picked up traffic that joined from the A29, and the last was just past the junction with the A285.

  Then Murray said, “I checked the three cameras against the local map and found a simple route around each one of them using side roads. Further to that: there were six side turnings that would also have gotten around them but by a much longer detour.”

  John was immediately disheartened.

  Murray let him stew for a few seconds.

  “Do you want to see what I found?”

  “I’ll be there in a second” and John nearly fell down the stairs in his haste to get to Murray’s office.

  “I’ve got three white vans for you, but none of them went past all three cameras” and he handed John the three sheets of top quality photo paper which displayed the coloured image of the rear view of each van with the number plate prominently displayed.

  John stared at each in turn but could not make out if there was any hole showing from the rear nearside light cluster of any of them. Murray could see he was looking for something specific and handed him a large magnifying glass. He still couldn’t make out any hole.

  “Can you do a PNC search on all of them?”

  “Already done” and he handed John three small bundles of paper.

  Within seconds, John had all the information available about each vehicle, and its registered owner in his hands.

  All three were locally registered vehicles, and John saw one was registered to a private address in Birdham, and the other two were registered to companies in Chichester. Things were starting to look up. John was profuse in his thanks to Murray, and promised him a lunch at Frankie and Benny’s one day soon. He practically galloped back up the stairs to the office and told Paul what Murray had found and that he would be working late checking the three vans during the evening. Although the sight of it in the Lagness area heading generally in the direction of Chichester the previous night had given him the idea of checking the ANPR’s on the A27, he didn’t disclose the fact to Paul or Doreen.