by Damien Boyd
The report on Fletcher’s ancient laptop had arrived from High Tech and was in the file sitting on Dixon’s passenger seat as he drove north on the M5. He also had the insolvency file to go through again, two company searches, and the photograph album from Scott Pilling to pore over.
One last call and then it was home for an evening with his feet up in front of the telly, if Jane hadn’t got there first.
It was a large bungalow in Warren Road, Brean, that backed on to the beach, the back garden giving way to sand dunes and then the sea. Perfect for dogs, as evidenced by the barking when Dixon turned into the drive.
He walked up the steps and knocked on the door.
‘Yes.’ She was in her early sixties, with her grey hair tied back in a ponytail, and spoke from the porch behind the glazed front door. Her black pullover was covered in dog hair.
‘You don’t remember me?’ asked Dixon.
‘The big white Staffie,’ she said, squinting at him.
‘That’s me. Monty.’
‘I may forget a face, never a dog. Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, he’s fine.’
‘Good,’ she replied. ‘D’you want to come in?’
Dixon looked down at her feet. She was surrounded by an indeterminate number of dogs, all different shapes and sizes and all of them jumping up at her.
‘No, this won’t take long,’ replied Dixon. ‘I’m a police officer and we have a Jack Russell, Nimrod. His owner’s died and I was wondering if you’d be able to take him in.’
‘Is he in the car?’
‘He’s in the kennels at Bridgwater.’
‘Yes, we’ll take him. How old is he?’
‘Four, we think.’
‘I’m sure we’ll find him a home. Drop him over whenever.’
‘Thank you. It’ll be tomorrow or Friday if that’s OK.’
‘Fine.’
‘I thought you’d had enough of war films.’
‘It’s a classic.’
‘What is it?’ asked Jane, rolling her eyes.
‘Ice Cold in Alex. Haven’t you seen it?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
Dixon hit the pause button on the TV remote control, closed the file of papers on his lap and stood up. ‘I’ll start it again when you’re ready. Lasagne all right with you?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Good day?’
‘I’m back in Bridgwater from Monday. They’re short staffed at the SCU, so I’m transferring as soon as my training’s over.’
‘That’s a stroke of luck, isn’t it?’
Jane threw her coat over the bannister at the bottom of the stairs. ‘And my adoption file arrived today.’
‘You applied for it then?’
‘I said I was going to.’
‘Yes, but I never thought you’d go through with it.’
‘Why not?’
‘You seemed so nervous about it.’
‘Well, I applied a couple of weeks ago and it came today.’
‘Have you told your parents?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You really need to do that before you do anything else.’
‘I know.’
‘What does it say?’ asked Dixon, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen holding a bag of garlic bread.
‘Dunno. I haven’t opened it yet.’
Jane pulled a sealed envelope from her handbag, unfolded it and handed it to Dixon. ‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not sure I want to know. What if I don’t like what I find?’
‘You need to be sure you want to know. Whatever it is. If you’re not sure, don’t open it.’
‘Not today then.’
‘You will when you’re ready. Unless you want me to.’
‘No.’
‘Well, here. This’ll take your mind off it for a while,’ said Dixon. He reached into his file on the sofa and pulled out the Scientific Services photograph album. ‘Flick through that lot and see if anything leaps out at you.’
‘You’re not supposed to be bringing this stuff home, you know.’
Jane sat down on the sofa and began leafing through the pictures. ‘Anything else come up today?’
‘Not really.’ Dixon was shouting from the kitchen. ‘I’ve found a home for the Jack Russell at least.’
‘Good.’
‘And High Tech found his Christmas card list on the hard drive of his laptop. It’d been deleted, but they restored it.’
‘That’ll give you a few more names and addresses to follow up.’
‘It will. I’m still without a plausible motive though. Or a suspect.’
‘You’ll get there.’
‘You haven’t forgotten we’re out to dinner on Friday night?’ asked Dixon.
‘Where are we going?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
‘Is it the Zalshah?’
Chapter Eight
Dave Harding was waiting for the kettle to boil when Dixon arrived in the CID area at Express Park. It was just gone 8 a.m. and no one else was in.
‘Dave?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Traffic cameras.’
‘Bloody hell, why is it always me?’
‘Because you’re good at it.’
Harding sighed long and loud.
‘We’ve got a time from the bloke out with his dogs at 1 a.m., and that fits with what Roger’s telling us, so start with Junction 24. Try the number plate cameras in Bridgwater too.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘And let’s see what mobile phone numbers are registering on the nearest base station at that time too.’
Harding nodded.
‘Let me know how you get on,’ said Dixon, dropping his file on to a workstation and switching on the computer. He made himself a coffee while the computer powered up and then began looking through the photographs of the pillbox that had not been printed off and included in the album. There were just over three hundred of them, and he was halfway through when Louise arrived.
‘What’ve we got for today?’ asked Dixon.
‘The insolvency practitioner in Exeter at ten. Then we’re over to Weymouth. We’re seeing the MD of Weymouth Properties at two o’clock, and then Mr Ziatabari after that. He works from home and will be in all afternoon, he said.’
‘Good. It’ll be interesting to see if Mark’s tracked down anyone off Fletcher’s Christmas card list by the time we get back too,’ said Dixon. ‘If he can get himself out of bed.’
Baker Endfield was a firm of accountants and insolvency practitioners on Southernhay in Exeter. Dixon followed the tree lined one-way system up Southernhay West and down Southernhay East, looking at the bewildering array of gold plates on almost every door. Once elegant Georgian townhouses, they were now occupied by law firms, accountants, estate agents, surveyors, stockbrokers, financial advisers, architects and dentists. He noticed several modern office blocks being converted into flats too, victims of businesses moving to out of town office parks no doubt. He grimaced. Spaceships on ring roads, just like Express Park.
‘What was the address again?’
‘Curlew House, Southernhay West,’ replied Louise.
‘That’s the other side,’ muttered Dixon. ‘We’ll go round again.’
He parked in a loading bay and they walked back to Curlew House.
‘Mr Endfield’s expecting you,’ said the receptionist. ‘Go through into the boardroom. I’ll let him know you’re here.’
Dixon waited in the window, which was at the back of the building and looked straight out at Exeter Cathedral.
‘Quite a view, isn’t it?’
Dixon spun round. Endfield was in his late fifties perhaps and dressed in his professional uniform: regulation grey suit, black shoes, matching shirt and tie. Dixon had worn it every day too until he had escaped the legal profession.
‘I’ve been looking at the file to remind myself,’ said Endfield, dropping a blue folder and a lev
er arch file on to the table. ‘Do sit down.’
‘That’s the file we’ve seen?’ asked Dixon.
‘Yes.’
‘What do you remember about Alan Fletcher?’
‘Nice chap actually. Just got in over his head as far as I can recall,’ replied Endfield. ‘It was an unusual one because it came to me after the Official Receiver had already wound up the company. They went after him personally too and had him disqualified as a company director.’
‘So, why did the business fail?’
‘Usual reasons really. The company wasn’t making enough money, pure and simple. And he was taking too much out. He’d got his clients by undercutting his competitors, and his margins were ludicrously tight. Most letting agents charge ten or twelve per cent commission, but he was doing it for five per cent for the bigger clients with several properties. It was unsustainable.’
‘How much money was he taking out?’
‘More than he should have done, but then he had to just to keep up with his mortgage payments. He’d mortgaged their house twice come the end. I remember Mrs Fletcher got a job elsewhere to bring some money in, but that just about covered their living expenses, and there wasn’t enough coming into the company each month to enable him to pay the mortgages. It’s a classic situation.’
‘So what’d he do?’
‘He started robbing Peter to pay Paul. He was able to keep that going for months before it all came crashing down.’
Endfield noticed Dixon frowning.
‘Let me explain. He’d taken too much out of the company,’ he continued. ‘So he couldn’t pay the rent due to Mr Smith. The tenant paid it to Fletcher, and he was supposed to pass it on to Mr Smith less his commission, right?’
Dixon nodded.
‘So, he used the money paid by Mr Jones’s tenant to pay Mr Smith, then the rent from another landlord’s tenant to pay Mr Jones, and so it went on. Round and round, which was fine until he lost a couple of tenants. Then he couldn’t pay anyone and it all came crashing down like a house of cards.’
‘Is that it?’ asked Dixon.
‘Well, there was a bit more to it than that, and it went on longer because he propped it up with a second mortgage, but that’s basically it. I felt sorry for him really. Once he’d got himself into it, he couldn’t get out, and it must have been incredibly stressful.’
‘Then HM Revenue & Customs stepped in?’
‘They did. He couldn’t pay his tax either. It was almost a relief to him when that happened.’
‘Was it incompetence or dishonesty?’ asked Dixon.
‘It started out as pure incompetence I think,’ replied Endfield. ‘I remember him saying once, “I’m a bloody soldier, not a businessman,” which was true of course. He was no businessman. Then he started lying to people to keep it afloat, stringing them along.’
Dixon shook his head.
‘Did he cooperate with you?’
‘Oh yes. The only thing we never got to the bottom of was where the client account had gone. The whole lot just disappeared.’
‘What did he say about it?’
‘Just that it must have got swallowed up.’
‘What about his creditors then? Did they turn nasty?’
‘One did, certainly. There were one or two sets of court proceedings ongoing,’ said Endfield, nodding, ‘but they were discontinued when the company was wound up. The creditors’ meetings were pretty ugly too.’
‘Who were the biggest losers?’
‘Weymouth Developments nearly went bust themselves, from memory. They’d grown by debt and all of their properties were heavily mortgaged. As you can imagine, when the rents stopped coming in from Fletcher it nearly tipped them over the edge.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘There were a couple of smaller fry who instructed solicitors, and there was a lot of piss and wind – pardon my language – but it never came to anything.’
‘And the unsecured creditors got nothing?’
‘Nothing at all. It all went to secured and preferred.’
‘What about Mrs Fletcher?’ asked Dixon. ‘Did you ever interview her?’
‘She was a shareholder, director and the company secretary, but according to him that was in name only. He did everything. I did speak to her, but she pleaded ignorance.’
‘Did Fletcher ever say he’d been threatened?’
‘Not to me. I’ve had several cases where threats have been made, Inspector, but the sums of money have always been much larger. I don’t think . . .’
‘Well, somebody did, Mr Endfield,’ said Dixon. ‘Somebody did.’
Dixon was surprised to find the offices of Weymouth Developments Ltd above a letting agency in Portland Road. He parked on the forecourt next to a powder blue Maserati and closed his eyes. It had been over two and a half hours in the Land Rover, but they had at least found a decent pub for lunch.
‘What’s this fellow’s name?’
‘Dean Maynard,’ replied Louise.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Just that we wanted to ask him some questions about Alan Fletcher.’
‘Not that Fletcher’s dead?’
‘No.’
‘Good,’ said Dixon. ‘Let’s go and see what he’s got to say for himself then.’
‘There’s someone waving at us from the letting agents,’ said Louise.
Dixon opened the door.
‘We’re looking for Dean Maynard.’
‘That’s me. Come in.’
‘We wanted to have a word with you about Alan Fletcher,’ said Dixon, showing Maynard his warrant card.
‘Ten years too bloody late . . .’
Maynard was in his mid-forties. His shirt was open at the neck, with the collar turned up, blue jeans and brown leather winkle pickers. Dixon suspected the tan was fake.
‘Is there somewhere private we can talk?’
‘We’ll go upstairs. Follow me.’
They followed Maynard along a corridor, through a narrow door and out into a courtyard at the back, where a flight of metal stairs led to another door and Maynard’s office.
‘Do I need a solicitor?’ asked Maynard, grinning. He sat down behind his desk, watching Dixon examining the pictures on the wall.
‘Only if you killed him,’ replied Dixon without turning around.
‘He’s dead?’
‘Tell me about the other shareholders in Weymouth Developments.’
‘What the hell’s it got to do with us?’
‘I’m trying to find out who and what it’s got to do with, Mr Maynard. That’s why I’m here.’
‘My wife and mother are the other shareholders,’ replied Maynard. ‘Why?’
‘What about your father?’
‘He died ten years ago. Heart attack.’
‘How many properties do you own?’
‘Twenty-seven.’ Maynard picked up a biro and began flicking it around his thumb. The first attempt failed, sending the pen spinning across his desk.
‘And how many did you have ten years ago?’
‘Seventeen or so, something like that. Look, what’s this all about?’
‘We’re investigating Alan Fletcher’s murder, Mr Maynard.’
Maynard smiled and slumped back into his chair, shaking his head.
‘What goes around comes around.’
‘Where were you on Saturday night between midnight and 2 a.m.?’ asked Dixon.
‘Now, hang on a minute. You can’t seriously think I did it?’
‘We have questions we have to ask, Mr Maynard.’
‘Well, I didn’t do it. There was a time I might’ve done if I’d had the bottle, but not now.’
‘You were Royal Marines karate champion I see,’ said Dixon, picking a frame off the mantelpiece. ‘Two years in a row.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘When did you join?’
‘In 1989. I was eighteen.’
‘And you left when?’
‘I did te
n years.’
‘Where were you on Saturday night?’
‘At home with my wife.’
‘What happened when Fletcher Lettings went bust?’
‘Twat,’ said Maynard, shaking his head. ‘He took us for right bloody mugs. We almost lost the lot. But I blame myself really. We got greedy, grew too far too fast, all of it funded by borrowing.’
‘You borrow against a property as the value goes up and use the money to buy another.’
‘Yes. It’s fine as long as property prices keep going up and the tenants keep paying the rent.’
‘And as long as your agent keeps passing it on.’
‘Bastard. He popped up offering to manage all the rentals for five per cent or whatever it was, and I jumped at it. My old man said it would end in tears.’
‘Was your father a shareholder?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your mother has fifty per cent, so I’m guessing she inherited his share when he died.’
‘That’s right. Me and Debs have the other half. How do you—?’
‘We did a company search,’ interrupted Dixon. ‘How much did you lose when Fletcher Lettings went bust?’
‘Thirty grand or so, but we nearly lost everything. We had no income to pay the mortgages, so my father remortgaged their house to bail us out. My mother blames his heart attack on the stress of it.’
‘When was it?’
‘A few months after it all kicked off.’
‘Was your father a marine?’
‘Yes. He left just after the Falklands. He was a sergeant. How did you know that?’
‘Father and son, it’s not unusual.’
‘Was your old man a copper?’ asked Maynard, his eyes narrowing.
‘No,’ replied Dixon. ‘You were suing Mr Fletcher, weren’t you?’
‘That was a waste of time. What’s the point of suing someone who hasn’t got any money?’
‘None,’ replied Dixon.
‘Shame our bloody solicitor didn’t tell us that. Anyway, we dropped it when the taxman got involved.’
‘And what about now?’ asked Dixon. ‘You use the letting agency downstairs I suppose.’
‘We own it. We decided to set up our own. It’s safer. And we’ve got other clients too now, as well as our own properties to manage, so it’s making good money these days.’