by M K Farrar
“Excellent. Glad to have helped.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” her told Maggie. Ryan ended the call and turned to Mallory. “That definitely gives us enough evidence to get a search warrant for his flat.”
“So, Sweeny is our guy?” Mallory asked.
“I’d say so. Everything is pointing to him. We just need to find out where he is.”
She pulled a face. “Easier said than done. What is it with these men going missing right when we need to talk to them?”
“If they could just learn to walk right into the police station when we need them, it would make our job a lot simpler,” he teased her. They both knew that was never going to happen. “We need to petition the magistrates’ court for a search warrant. Make sure they know it’s urgent.”
Mallory nodded and took out her phone. “I’ll get onto that right away.”
He called for backup. “I need someone positioned outside the address of a suspect while we’re waiting for a search warrant.”
“You go,” he told Mallory. “I’ll wait here until the squad car turns up. I’m not going to risk Sweeny coming back and us missing him, or, if he’s already in there, but is hoping we’ll just go away, for him to do a runner.”
“No problem, boss. I’ll see you back in the office.”
“With the warrant,” he told her.
“Absolutely.”
He watched her climb into the car and drive off, and then leaned against the wall of Philip Sweeny’s flat to wait for backup. A steely determination settled inside him. Sweeny was their man, and Ryan wouldn’t rest until he’d tracked him down. He remembered how he’d promised to keep Nikki Francis updated with progress. This was surely news worthy of a call? Or was he just using it as an excuse?
He took out his phone and scrolled to her number. She’d probably be busy. This might be better coming as an email. No, he dismissed the thought instantly. If he sent her an email, she’d probably string him up by his balls the next time she saw him.
He cleared his throat, hesitated once more, and then hit the call button. The phone rang, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted her to answer or not, but then she did.
“Ryan,” her warm voice came down the line. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hi, Nikki. I promised I’d keep you updated on the Wyndham case.”
He hoped she wasn’t going to be disappointed that he was calling for business reasons, but then he gave himself a mental slap. She was a beautiful, intelligent, professional woman. It wasn’t as though he was exactly a catch. He had more baggage than the belly of an airplane.
“How’s it going?”
“We have a name. A Mr Philip Sweeny. We’ve found his DNA at the scene, and a van licensed to his business was caught on CCTV the night of the murders. Looks like he may have taken videos and photos of the Wyndham house when they put it on the market.”
“Oh my God. Why did he kill them?”
Ryan shrugged, even though she couldn’t see him. “That’s still something we’re trying to work out.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve made progress.”
“Me, too, though we still have to track him down.”
“I’m sure you will. How have you been otherwise?” she asked.
“You know, the usual.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “Busy?”
He could hear the smile in her voice and was glad she wasn’t angry with him. “Yeah, still busy.” He caught sight of the blue, yellow, and white of a response vehicle heading down the road towards him. “Speaking of busy, I’ve got to go. Uniform have just turned up.”
“No problem. Thanks for calling, Ryan.”
He was about to hang up and then stopped himself. “Oh, and Nikki, if you’re ever thinking of putting your house on the market, don’t let them do one of those online video tours.”
“Got it,” she said and ended the call.
He waved to flag down the driver of the response car. He’d leave an officer here and get the other one to give him a ride back to the office.
Two police officers climbed out, and Ryan gave them a rundown of where they were. It was agreed that one would stay guarding the flat until the search warrant came through. Ryan hoped it wouldn’t take too long.
He got a lift back to the office, but before he could get in the door, he was accosted by DC Penn.
“Boss, I’ve tracked down the estate agents the Wyndham house was on with.”
“Tell me,” Ryan said.
“The property was marketed by Parks and Walker Estate Agents. They have their premises on Cathedral Walk. It was on the market for a whole ten days.”
Ryan checked his watch. It was heading into late afternoon now, but they should still be open. “Let’s pay them a visit, see what they know about Sweeny.”
***
The estate agent was located in a modern building not far from the quay. The glass-fronted entrance was filled with current properties on the market—everything from huge townhouses worth millions, to properties with several acres out in the countryside. In the window on the right were the more ‘normal’ properties—terraced Bristol houses that were in the few hundred thousand price mark rather than several million. Even so, it was hard for people to get on the housing market with Bristol house prices what they were, and they seemed to be climbing all the time. He’d been lucky in that he’d bought before prices had gone crazy. Of course, then his marriage had broken down and he’d bought his overpriced flat. He hadn’t wanted to rent. The idea of living somewhere that another person owned didn’t sit right with him. He’d rather own a tiny, one-bedroom flat than live in a three-bedroom house where a landlord could tell him what pictures he was allowed to hang and could potentially kick him out with just a month’s notice. He appreciated that he was lucky to have the option. Most of the younger generation had no choice but to rent.
He wasn’t there to muse over the state of the housing market.
They entered the estate agents. A couple of smartly dressed women sat behind individual desks, and they both glanced up at Ryan and Craig, probably mistaking them for potential clients rather than police.
“Hi there,” chirped the older of the two women. “How can I help?”
Ryan took out his ID, and her smile faltered.
“I’m DI Chase. I have some questions regarding a case. Can I speak to whoever is in charge here?”
“That would be me.” She got to her feet and held out her hand to Ryan. “I’m Emma Fenn, and I’m the manager.”
“Do you have a private office we could talk in?”
“Of course.” She addressed her colleague. “You going to be all right without me, Becky?”
It wasn’t as though they had anyone else in the office, but Ryan guessed the phones could get busy.
“Yeah, fine,” the other woman said, flashing a curious but concerned smile.
Emma gestured to a door at the back. “Right this way.”
She led them though into a small but tidy staffroom, containing a kettle and a microwave and an under-the-counter fridge. There were also a couple of two-seater sofas, and Emma nodded to one of them before taking a seat on the other.
Ryan perched on the edge of the sofa she’d nodded to, and Craig sat beside him.
“I wondered if you could remember marketing a property about five months ago. It was number forty-two Denville Road in Bedminster, owned by Liz and Hugh Wyndham.”
Emma frowned. “That name does sound familiar. We’ve had an awful lot of houses put on the market between now and then, though. Were they on the market for long?”
“No, only a couple of weeks.”
“They sold that fast?” She seemed surprised.
“No, they took the house off the market again.”
She bit her lower lip. “I’m going to need to look it up, I’m afraid. I don’t remember them off the top of my head.”
“When they put the house on the market, they had photographs taken which include
d a virtual tour.”
She nodded. “Yes, we try to do that with as many properties as possible now, though we do charge an additional percent on our cut to cover costs. Some people don’t go for it, even though it increases the chance of a sale. A lot of people buy from all over the country and can’t always visit a property in person, so having a virtual tour they can do online helps. It allows potential buyers to be able to feel like they’re right inside the house.”
“Can you give me the name of the person who takes the footage?”
“We have a few different people we use. They work independently, and we bring them in when we need them, but obviously they’re not always available, so we have others as backups.”
“Are you able to search up the name of the person who worked on the Wyndham house as well?”
“Sure, I can do that. Just give me a minute.” She took out her phone and swiped the screen, frowning down at it.
Ryan was already fairly sure it was going to be Philip Sweeny, but in his time in his job, he’d learned never to take anything for granted. He’d been surprised at developments of a case more times than he could count.
“Yes, here it is. I do remember—” Her mouth rounded in an ‘O’ of surprise. “Oh my God. Now I know why I recognised that name. That’s the poor family who was murdered a few days ago, wasn’t it? They were killed in that house?”
There was little point in denying it. “Yes, that’s them.”
Her shock morphed to confusion. “And you think their murders had something to do with their house being on the market?”
“It’s just a line of enquiry we’re following up.”
He could see her putting pieces of the questions he’d been asking together in her mind.
Her eyes widened. “You think whoever took video footage of their house might have had something to do with their deaths?”
“As I said, it’s not something I can discuss. Can you tell me who worked on the house?”
“Umm, it was done by Property Studio, which means Philip Sweeny would have come out to take the photographs and video footage. He does a lot of work for us. He’s always in and out of the office.”
“When you say ‘always in and out of the office’, are you talking daily? Or longer between visits than that?”
“Sorry, more like weekly. But he does work for us on a regular basis.”
“How many properties would you say he’s worked on?”
She shrugged. “I really couldn’t say. A lot. Probably a few a month. But he doesn’t only work for us. Like I said, he’s freelance, so I imagine he’s working for a number of other estate agents in the city as well.”
Ryan exchanged a glance with Craig. His colleague would be thinking the same. If Sweeny was working for lots of different places, it was going to make it harder to track him down.
“After Sweeny has given you the footage of the houses,” Ryan asked, “is he then required to delete it?”
“Well, no. Technically, he owns the copyright on the video footage. It’s in our contract when we sign up with a new client. I believe he likes to be able to use it for his own website, to bring in new customers for himself.”
“Then he could go back and rewatch that footage as often as he likes. Get to know every detail there is to know about a person’s house.”
She blinked. “I-I guess so, yes.”
Ryan had another question. “As an estate agent, do you ever take down passcodes for a client’s alarm, if they’re on your books.”
She nodded. “Of course, and we’ll have a set of keys as well, in case we have to do viewings when the homeowners aren’t there. To be honest, I prefer to do viewings when the house is empty. I can get a better idea about what the potential buyer is thinking if they’re not worried about offending the sellers.”
“Could Sweeny have got hold of keys or an alarm code? Is he ever left alone in the office?”
She shifted awkwardly in her seat. “I mean, he’s not here on his own completely. One of us is always going to be somewhere in the building. But yes, I suppose that is possible.”
“I’m going to need to know the exact last time Sweeny was in the office and what house he worked on.”
“I can find that out for you.” She hesitated and said, “You don’t think he had something to do with the murders, do you? He always seemed like a perfectly nice man. A little quiet, perhaps, but always polite.”
Ryan didn’t respond to the question. “If you could just look that up for me, I’d appreciate it.”
She nodded and went back to her phone. “Right, it seems he did a job for us last month.”
“Can you give me the details of the house he worked on? On second thoughts, can you give me the addresses of all the properties he’s worked on over the past six months?”
“I’ll print them out.” She gestured at the door. “The printer’s out in the office.”
Ryan rose to his feet and straightened out the front of his suit trousers. “We’ll come with you. I think we have everything we need for now, but we may be in touch at a later time.”
They filed back out into the office. The other estate agent, Becky, was sitting with a couple now, going over property details. Everyone glanced over with awkward smiles as they made an appearance.
Emma went over to the printer and retrieved the details. She handed them to Ryan.
He glanced down at them. It contained a list of at least fifteen different properties.
“Thanks for this,” he said. “Here’s my card. If you see Philip Sweeny, don’t mention that we want to talk to him, just pick up the phone and call me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for your time.”
He and Craig left the building and stepped back out onto the street.
“That must be how he’s picked his victims,” Craig said. “But does it help us track him down?”
Ryan blew out a breath and held up the property details. “We’ll check on these people, but if he worked for multiple estate agents, he could have covered numerous other houses before or after this one.”
He was going to need to get more people onto this. There were a lot of estate agents in the city, and they needed to contact every single one.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ryan got back in the office and called a briefing. DCI Hirst attended as well, sitting at the back of the room.
“I appreciate it’s getting late, everyone, but we can’t take our foot off the gas just yet.”
He’d printed off a photograph of Philip Sweeny which he’d then attached to the board on the wall. Ryan had taken it from Sweeny’s photography site. The man looked completely harmless. He had one of those faces that was neither handsome nor ugly. Easily forgettable. He was smartly dressed in a shirt but had forgone the tie, creating a smart but relaxed persona. Who’d have thought he’d have it in him to murder a whole family in their beds.
“We’re ninety-nine percent sure this is the perpetrator of the Wyndham murders. Philip Sweeny is thirty-two years old, unmarried, with a current address here in Bristol. He was last seen by his neighbour, Glenda Rollick, on Friday evening at eight-fifteen, leaving his house carrying a duffle bag. She doesn’t think he’s been back since. What did he have in that bag? Clothes he changed into after he’d slaughtered the Wyndham family? The murder weapon, maybe? Was he on his way to the Wyndham house to hide in their loft or did he go somewhere else before then? Figuring out his movements might help us locate him now.” Ryan took a breath. “We’ve put in for a search warrant for his flat, which I’m hoping will come back soon, and once we’re able to conduct the search, we may get some idea of where he is.”
Ryan pointed to another picture—that of the security footage of the Ford Transit. “As well as Sweeny, his van is also missing. If we can find the van, I suspect Sweeny won’t be too far away. We’ve put out an attention drawn call, so hopefully it’ll get spotted soon. There’s a good chance Sweeny is just hiding out. Perhaps he realises we’re o
nto him and so he’s made himself scarce. However, as much as I hate saying it, there’s also a chance Sweeny is in the process of picking his next victims. We need to contact every estate agent in the city and find out which of them have worked with Philip Sweeny.”
“How many estate agents are in Bristol?” DC Dev Kharral asked. “It must be a lot.”
Ryan nodded. “A quick search says there’s almost two hundred, but some of those estate agents were the same company just with multiple offices. From there, we need to find out which of those estate agents had employed Sweeny to do virtual tours. Even with Sweeny only working on one property a day over the past six months, we’re still looking at over a hundred potential properties, and so over a hundred potential victims.”
“We could just check their websites,” Linda suggested. “We could only talk to those who have the virtual tours featured.”
“No, it’s not enough. Someone might have employed him to take videos but not uploaded them yet.”
She conceded. “Good point.”
“This is going to take some old-fashioned legwork. Divide the city up between you, and contact each of the estate agents, find out if they worked with Sweeny, then get the listings from the last six months that he worked on.”
Ryan looked to Dev. “How did we get on with getting his phone records?”
“No luck, sorry, boss. Can’t find any personal number registered in his name, and the work phone has been switched off so we can’t trace it. The records came back, but nothing on there is showing anything unusual. I’ve been able to match the calls to a number of estate agents, so we can probably use the numbers to help us figure out who he’s worked with recently.”
“Okay. Have we found any relatives of Sweeny’s? Perhaps someone he might have gone to?” He focused his attention on Linda Quinn who he’d tasked with that action.
Linda’s lips had thinned. “I went to speak to Sweeny’s old foster parent, Mr Martin Willis. If you remember, Sweeny was charged and convicted of ABH when he was eighteen after attacking Mr Willis?”
Ryan nodded to show he remembered.
She continued. “Mr Willis had an interesting story. He says Philip Sweeny was always a troubled boy, and that it didn’t surprise him that things ended how they had. Sweeny was put into the system at the age of seven after he was taken from his mother who was a drug addict. She went on a five-day binge in London and left him to fend for himself. The neighbours called the police after they caught him going through their bins for food.”