Death Sentence (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 6)

by Damien Boyd

  ‘Joel,’ said Dixon.

  The armed officers swung their guns towards the sound of his voice.

  ‘Armed police. Stay where you are!’

  ‘This is 3275 Detective Inspector Dixon.’

  ‘How the fuck did you get out of there?’ asked Kandes, shaking his head. He was still pointing the handgun at the armed response officers on the far side of the car park.

  ‘It’s over, Joel. Put the gun down.’

  ‘It’ll never be over.’

  ‘You’ve got a sister, and an aunt. It doesn’t have to end here.’

  Kandes sighed, turned to Dixon and grinned.

  ‘Like father like son, eh?’

  Then he jumped up and ran towards the police cars, firing from the hip.

  Dixon turned away, slumping down into the snow behind the wall as the shots rang out.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘Is he all right?’ shouted Jane from the other side of the car park.

  ‘Fine,’ yelled Dixon, peering in the window of his Land Rover and trying to make himself heard over Monty’s barking. ‘But he’s torn his bed to shreds.’

  Dixon turned and looked across at Kandes, lying on his back in the snow in the car park outside the Wessex Cave Club hut, a firearms officer doing CPR while others moved the patrol cars blocking the drive to allow the ambulance through.

  The patch of red snow underneath him getting larger all the time.

  Jane walked over and watched the paramedics working on Kandes.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said.

  ‘Well, he got what he wanted.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Dixon turned to find a paramedic peering at the back of his head.

  ‘Yes, I think so. He hit me with the gun butt.’

  ‘We’d better have a look at it. Let’s go inside.’

  Jane made tea in the kitchen, warming her hands over the stove, while the paramedic attended to Dixon’s head. He was wiping away the blood congealed in Dixon’s hair with a medicated towel.

  ‘Stings, does it?’ he asked when Dixon winced.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll need stitches in it.’

  ‘Can you just patch me up for now?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’ll go to the hospital tomorrow.’

  ‘They’re in here, Mark.’ Dixon recognised Louise’s voice.

  ‘Anything we can do, Sir?’ said Mark from the doorway.

  Dixon was sitting on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Light the fire?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Jane, handing Dixon a mug of tea.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Like father like son,’ muttered Dixon. ‘Only not quite.’

  ‘You’d better come and see this, Sir,’ said Pearce. ‘They’ve opened that camper van in the car park.’

  ‘Who’s it registered to?’

  ‘An elderly lady in Nailsea. The buyer paid cash, said he’d fill in the V5 and send it to DVLA.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘It’s Kandes.’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, trudging across the car park in a pair of wellington boots and a fleece undersuit he’d found in the changing rooms.

  Dixon looked into the back of the camper van, where a firearms officer was kneeling down, holding open a bag.

  ‘Cocaine, cable ties and rope, Sir.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Cash. Bundles of twenties. A grand each, Sir.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘His retainer,’ said Dixon, turning back towards the hut. ‘Serial numbers, please, Louise. Quick as you can.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Dixon slumped down on to the sofa in front of the fire next to Jane. Monty was curled up on the rug next to her.

  ‘Is it over?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Nearly,’ replied Dixon, closing his eyes.

  Dixon spent the next two days interviewing Tamsin Kandes, when he wasn’t asleep. Now he was on Berrow Beach with Jane, leaning into the wind and rain as they walked towards Brean Down.

  ‘Look who it is,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nimrod.’ Dixon reached into his pocket for a dog biscuit as the Jack Russell came bounding along the beach towards him.

  Monty was more interested in the seaweed washed up on the tide that morning, mercifully.

  ‘I decided to keep him,’ shouted the elderly lady running after him. ‘He’s such a lovely little chap.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And this’ll be Monty?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘He’s looking well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do let me know if you have any other strays you need looking after.’

  ‘I will.’

  Dixon turned into the wind and put his arm round Jane.

  ‘How much further d’you want to go?’ she asked, squinting at Brean Down in the distance.

  ‘All the way,’ he replied, grinning.

  ‘Stop mucking about,’ she said, digging him in the ribs. ‘So, how did you get on with Tamsin this morning?’

  ‘A full confession.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Pretty much, although she blames her brother and says he forced her into it.’

  ‘She’ll probably get away with that now he’s not here to say otherwise.’

  ‘They came to the UK after their mother died, looking for Fletcher. That’s when they met Hagley. He suggested Tamsin engineer a meeting with Brett Greenwood, fellow Canadian and all that, and Greenwood got her a job at Lings.’

  ‘So they could find Fletcher?’

  ‘That’s right,’ replied Dixon. ‘Only Fiona Hull caught her rummaging through the file. Most people would have sacked her at that point, but Fiona was in too deep for that. She’d lost the firm a lot of money and was on her last warning. She’d have lost everything: her partnership, big house on Clifton Downs, kids in private school, the lot. And she’d taken the case on without insurance against paying the defence costs if they lost.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘She couldn’t get it. No insurer would take it on.’

  ‘But surely the claimants would be liable for the defence costs if they lost.’

  ‘Technically, but she never warned them, so they’d be able to sue Lings. And the court can also award costs against the solicitors themselves in some situations.’

  ‘How much would that be?’

  ‘Including an appeal?’ Dixon grimaced. ‘Well over a hundred thousand. A lot more if it went all the way to the European Court.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘It wasn’t just about that though. It was a test case don’t forget, and if she could force the government to settle this one, then they’d have to settle the other cases waiting in the wings. Sixty of them, all military personnel suffering from mesothelioma and being denied compensation. She took their case when no one else would,’ said Dixon, shaking his head. ‘I admire her for that.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So, she catches Tamsin rummaging through the file looking for Fletcher’s address and demands to know why. Tamsin tells her the whole story, none of it in the witness statements of course, and the seed is sown. The no-win, no-fee agreement was Joel’s idea, but he didn’t need much persuading to help the marines apparently. And he wanted the money of course.’

  ‘A killer on a no-win, no-fee,’ muttered Jane, shaking her head.

  ‘Ten percent of the damages, if he’d pulled it off,’ replied Dixon. ‘Anyway, Fiona moves Tamsin to work for Brett Greenwood and carries on as if nothing has happened, with a small retainer paid to Joel to cover expenses. The serial numbers match cash withdrawals from her bank. She must’ve been pretty bloody desperate by this point.’

  ‘And Tamsin tipped off Joel when the barrister was going to be down the cav
e.’

  ‘Alison Crowther-Smith, yes. She’d been advising the Crown to fight the case all the way to the European Court.’

  ‘And Fryer?’

  ‘He was adamant the Crown would fight it as well. Fiona tried to settle, but Fryer refused. There are telephone notes on the file. So Tamsin put Joel on to Fryer too. He was replaced by a more sympathetic lawyer at the Government Legal Department, but the Crown still wouldn’t pay up. That’s when she gave him Fripp’s whereabouts.’

  ‘What about Fletcher?’

  ‘He was the odd one out. Fletcher got in touch with Hagley to ask if there was anything he could do to help them. That was the guilt I expect. Anyway, Kandes took the opportunity to kill him, and that was when the whole thing started to unravel.’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘You’re too kind,’ said Dixon. ‘The original plan was to leave Fletcher until after the case was over.’

  ‘After they’d won, you mean?’

  ‘It was more about forcing the government to settle it.’

  ‘Did the marines know about it then?’

  ‘Only Hagley, but the money would’ve been paid by Fiona.’

  ‘What a bloody mess,’ said Jane, shaking her head.

  ‘It was going well too if you think about it,’ continued Dixon. ‘Until Joel kills Fletcher. If he hadn’t done that when he did, we’d never have made the connection and they’d probably have got away with it.’

  ‘Will they win if the case goes to Europe?’

  ‘We’ll never know now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The court proceedings have been stayed – suspended indefinitely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they did win in a way. There’s a no-fault compensation scheme for mesothelioma victims funded by the government, and they’ve announced it’s being extended to cover all service personnel.’

  ‘So the marines will get their compensation?’

  ‘They will. Lings will be out of pocket though. They won’t get their costs paid, and they’ve still got the Border Agency fines to worry about as well.’

  ‘After all that?’

  ‘After all that,’ said Dixon, looking at his watch. ‘I spoke to Lewis this morning. He’s persuaded the chief constable to recommend you for a medal.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Saving my skin.’

  ‘I didn’t do it for them.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Dixon, wrapping his arms around Jane’s waist. ‘And you know that. But they don’t need to know that.’

  He kissed her, neither of them noticing the rain running down their faces.

  ‘C’mon, we need to get going. You’re meeting your mother at six.’

  ‘You are coming with me?’

  ‘You have to ask?’

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you for reading Death Sentence, and I very much hope you enjoyed it.

  There are several people without whom this book would not have been written, and I would like to record my thanks to them while I have the chance.

  Firstly, to Alison Crowther-Smith, Florence Crowther-Smith and Will Reed, all members of the Wessex Cave Club, who very kindly (and patiently) escorted me down Swildon’s Hole and then brought me back to the surface again in one piece.

  I went as far as (but not through) Sump One, and it was a great day out. I cannot thank them enough for both the truly magical experience and the research, and if you have never been caving, I can heartily recommend it!

  Secondly, to my father, Michael. I don’t think I am giving away any state secrets when I say that he was based at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern in 1982, really did examine the Argentinian radar cabins when they were shipped back from the Falklands and really did find a turd in one of the drawers!

  I should also like to thank Emilie Marneur, Katie Green and the team at Thomas & Mercer for their patience, as always.

  And finally I should like to record my thanks to the UK government for extending the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme to service personnel whose exposure to asbestos predates the 1987 repeal of the Crown Proceedings Act.

  Thanks again for reading.

  Damien Boyd

  Devon, UK

  April 2016

  About the Author

  Photo © 2013 Damien Boyd

  Damien Boyd is a solicitor by training and draws on his extensive experience of criminal law, along with a spell in the Crown Prosecution Service, to write fast-paced crime thrillers featuring Detective Inspector Nick Dixon.