Barking Mad

by Ted Tayler

  “Her parents loved the house when they dropped in on Saturday night. She had lunch with them in town somewhere yesterday. It doesn’t seem right when you and Vera aren’t talking about one another, Mr Freeman. I had such high hopes for you two.”

  “I understand that, Kassie,” said Gus. “You can’t force these things. Did any of those four lads from Saturday ask for your number?”

  “Each of them did during the day,” said Kassie. “I haven’t heard from any of them yet though. Typical.”

  “They don’t know what they’re missing, Kassie,” said Gus, “you’ve got a heart of gold. Before I finish this consultancy lark, I hope to see you meet Mr Right.”

  “I live in hope,” sighed Kassie. “DI Ferris returns to work on Wednesday, Mr Freeman. Although I expect you heard that?”

  “I did not,” said Gus.

  “Half days at first,” said Kassie, “then if she copes with the pressure Mr Mercer said she could return full time from next Monday.”

  “Excellent news,” said Gus as he dashed downstairs and left the building

  In the CRT office, Lydia, and Luke were at a loose end. They couldn’t progress the Mark Malone case without instructions from Gus Freeman. Luke had prepared a search routine for the Hub to process. He imagined they might need a list of drivers charged with road rage incidents.

  “Why do we need that?” asked Lydia, “it was only a theory put forward by the detectives in the original investigation.”

  “While road rage is not an offence in UK law, many incidents occur because of dangerous or careless driving,” said Luke Sherman. “All reports, whether or not damage or injury has occurred can get considered. There could also be criminal penalties for assault or more serious offences against the person.”

  Gus Freeman overheard Luke’s explanation as he emerged from the lift.

  “Offences against the person? That’s public order offences, Luke, am I right?”

  “Yes, guv. I wondered if we should get the Hub to interrogate the records for drivers whose actions on the highway might be likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress. We might have an extensive list when we add it to drivers who got nicked for driving without due care and attention around the time of the Malone murder.”

  “What else will you be asking from the Hub?” asked Gus.

  “I scraped the bottom of the barrel to get that much, guv, to be truthful,” said Luke, “did you have any suggestions?”

  Gus blew out his cheeks in frustration and flopped into his chair.

  “Would you like a fresh cup of coffee, guv?” asked Lydia.

  “No, thanks,” said Gus. “The news I received from London Road wasn’t pleasant.”

  “Can you share it with us, guv?” asked Luke.

  “The Chief Constable died at the weekend, together with her partner. They don’t suspect foul play. That’s the statement the media will get.”

  “That’s dreadful,” gasped Lydia.

  “We mustn’t blame ourselves,” said Gus. “It fully justified the work that members of this team did to highlight the criminal wrongdoings of others. As hard as it is, we must move on.”

  “That’s something I can’t always get my head around, guv,” said Lydia. “I remember what you told us after you solved our first case. Our part in the process was complete. We’d analysed the evidence, questioned the witnesses, and identified Leonard Pemberton-Smythe as the killer. My natural reaction was to follow the story through to the trial, conviction, and public shaming of a senior politician. A man who trumpeted family values and strong policing. You handed that part on to DS Mercer and the Crown Prosecution Service without a backward look.”

  “The justice system isn’t infallible, Lydia,” said Gus, “but we have to rely on it finally getting the right result. That was the way I operated when a serving officer. When the ACC asked me if I wanted another chance to show how good a detective I was, I couldn’t say no. I agreed to come back on the understanding that I could do just that; to detect. As for Sandra Plunkett and the others involved in the death of Terry Davis, we followed the evidence, established irrefutable links between the suspects and Neil’s father’s murder. Last week when our findings went to the IOPC, our job ended. In due course, I believed the guilty parties would face trial for whichever offences that evidence warranted. I made no recommendations; that’s not for me to decide. I relied on the system to deliver the right result. The events of the weekend are tragic but irrelevant as they don’t alter the facts. The Chief Constable covered up the death of Jason Whitworth in 2012 and then was complicit in ordering the murder of Terry Davis by Ricky Gardiner to continue that cover-up.”

  “Where does that leave us with Culverhouse and Gardiner, guv?” asked Luke Sherman.

  “When I drove home on Friday, I must admit I hoped that by today Gardiner would be in custody. The IOPC could then carry out their investigations into our allegations. Do you have any idea of the scale of matters they cover?”

  “I’ve heard rumours about the Met Police’s ghost squad, guv,” said Luke, “they handle hundreds of accusations against our rotten apples, don’t they?”

  “There has always been a minority that sabotaged evidence or passed information to criminals and journalists in return for money. It’s frightening to learn that others dealt in drugs, that they conspired to commit kidnap, violence, serious assaults, or even attempted murder. We have experienced instances of that in this office. The IOPC face a further problem when investigating a serving officer. They know what vehicles we use, our techniques and where to go, what to look for, everything about the way we operate. The people investigating Culverhouse and Plunkett would use their intelligence hub and surveillance teams so that no one else found out who they have under the microscope. They recognise that you never know who to trust.”

  “Did they issue a misconduct notice to Culverhouse and Plunkett, guv?” asked Luke.

  “That is standard procedure, Luke. Whether the complaint came from a member of the public or an internal source, they should learn that they were under investigation. The ACC hasn’t informed us whether either of them got served notice of suspension or restriction. If the Chief Constable got told on Friday, then that may have triggered what followed over the weekend. How Dominic Culverhouse reacted, who knows?”

  “Watch this space then, guv,” said Lydia.

  “You know what my response will be, Lydia,” said Gus, “it’s out of our hands now. Mark Malone’s death in 2015, however, is very much our case and we must give it our full attention. Let’s run through the bare bones of it once more to see what emerges.”

  Luke Sherman flicked through the murder file and read from a newspaper report.

  “The shooting of a motorist is looking increasingly likely to be a road-rage murder. DI Trefor Davies said yesterday they sought the owner of a grey BMW seen alongside Mark Malone’s car only minutes before the shooting. The twenty-nine-year-old Malone’s distinctive vehicle stopped next to the grey BMW at a JET garage outside Marlborough on the twelfth of May. DI Davies believed that the grey vehicle was crucial to the case. He thought the motive for the killing emanated from that period as opposed to past events.”

  “Did they even bother to delve deeper into the victim’s background?” asked Lydia. “What did Malone do for a living?”

  “He was a pet shop manager, returning to his home in Bath,” said Luke. “Malone spent the evening with friends in Newbury.”

  “They must pay better wages than I thought for a pet shop manager,” said Gus, “what does a BMW like that cost, Luke?”

  “Don’t look at me, guv, I couldn’t afford one. You wouldn’t get much change out of thirty grand for a customised model such as the car Malone drove.”

  “Why did DI Davies and his team raise the prospect of mistaken identity?” asked Lydia.

  “It could have been a defence mechanism,” said Gus, “a trap I’ve fallen into myself when younger and less experienced. A reporter might press you for an answer,
or a relative can’t understand why anyone would want to kill their son or brother. Malone’s was a callous murder which left his family and friends devastated. People want answers, and they want them at once. The police need time to investigate every avenue, and that time isn’t made available. When a solution doesn’t appear within a brief space of time, the detective team moves on to another case with a greater chance of success.”

  “I’ve found something relevant in the stuff they gathered, guv,” said Luke. “The murder weapon was the catalyst for the mistaken identity theory. An innocent member of the public died during a turf war in Islington, back in 2013. Mark Allison was a student at the London Metropolitan University. He died in a drive-by shooting late in the afternoon of October the twenty-first. Police believed the killer mistook Allison for a gangland rival. Allison’s murder remains unsolved. When forensics collected evidence from the scene of Malone’s murder, they confirmed that the gunman fired six shots. Two shots hit Malone, wounding him fatally, and he died in Swindon hospital around three hours after the shooting. The six bullets came from the same weapon. Ballistics proved it was the same gun used to kill Mark Allison.”

  “I don’t suppose that will help,” asked Lydia, “we can’t just arrest the registered gun owner, can we?”

  “It reduces the number of potential killers,” said Luke. “We can start with that turf war in 2013 and identify the gangs involved. The Hub might match Mark Allison’s photo to a known gang member, to explain the confusion. That will indicate which gang carried out the killing but hit the wrong target.”

  “It’s not our job to solve that murder, Luke,” said Gus. “Who says the 2013 killer didn’t toss the weapon straight after the shooting? That handgun could have had a dozen owners in the intervening eighteen months. As Lydia pointed out, it was an illegal weapon. We might find that Allison and Malone might pass for twins and the 2015 attack was the killer finally getting his man. My gut tells me they’re unrelated. Pass the enquiry onto the Hub if you wish, but make sure they understand it’s a lower priority than a detailed list of Malone’s phone records. I want to see his contact list, which of them he rang or messaged on the night he died, where he found the extra money to afford a flashy motor. We have an awful lot more to learn about young Mark Malone.”

  Luke and Lydia could tell this case was shaping up to be just as difficult to solve as any of the previous cases they’d worked on together. Lydia wished Alex and Neil were back at work. Not because she didn’t enjoy working with Luke, but she still considered the original line-up as the A-Team.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon digging into Mark Malone’s background.

  Gus Freeman left at five o’clock and drove to Urchfont. His first stop was the allotment. He unlocked the door to his garden shed and slid open the top drawer of an old wooden cabinet in the far corner. Underneath a pile of seed catalogues, he found the tobacco tin. Inside was an assortment of keys, none of them labelled. Gus knew which set was Tess’s collection of house keys.

  Gus had brought them from the bungalow after Tess died. You never knew when you might need a spare set. If he lost his own, he had only an old shed door lock to replace, not something costly at the bungalow.

  The driveway was empty when he drove in from the lane—dinner for one this evening. Gus kept the keys in his pocket until the right time, whenever that might be.

  Tuesday 5th June 2018

  Ricky Gardiner was on the run.

  That came from trusting other people. Two weeks ago, he had everything under control. The solicitors were handling the sale of his mother’s properties in Cornwall and Birmingham. He could retire to the sun on the proceeds.

  All he had to do was keep that good-looking copper in his mother’s rundown old house in Leek Wootton for another couple of days. He hoped it never came to it, but for the right money, he would have killed her.

  Another nice little earner; the same as getting rid of Terry Davis for his so-called partners. A piece of cake. Davis was as drunk as a lord when he got back to that doss-house they had the nerve to call a B&B. He’d stood in the dark passageway and waited until Davis scrambled in his pockets for his keys. Ten seconds later, they were both outside on the fire escape. He stood at the top, and Terry Davis lay dead at the bottom. A quick dash down the staircase to check, and then he left Devizes on foot and got onto the Chippenham road.

  When did things get complicated?

  That phone call was when it went pear-shaped. Bad enough dealing with that low-life Culverhouse, but Plunkett always threatened to be a weak link.

  Ricky didn’t like women.

  His mother never gave him the time of day. When he joined the Met and moved into a flat, it was the happiest he’d seen her. Did he ever give her any grief? Not really, he was never in trouble with the law when at school. That took talent in the borough where he lived. Ricky wasn’t a waster like his Dad, and he had a decent job as a copper, even if the pay wasn’t brilliant. That’s why he’d supplemented his earnings by helping a few people with information, turning a blind eye here and there, and losing bits of evidence. Every little helped.

  The undercover gig brought more money and more opportunities. Ricky met loads of women in that game, but none of them interested him that way. He watched other blokes taken in by the bullshit they fed them. No chance, nobody dragged Ricky Gardiner around with a ring through the nose.

  He listened to Sandra High and Mighty Plunkett during that phone call, getting squeamish about agreeing to get rid of Ferris. The young girl slept with Freeman for heaven’s sake. Of course, the kidnap was the perfect card to play; Culverhouse was right. Freeman ran around like a headless chicken, wondering where his lady friend had gone. His head was full of thoughts of a piece of skirt, not trying to end the careers of two high-flying coppers,

  To make matters worse, Plunkett wasn’t happy at Davis’s death not getting written off as an accident. Typical woman, always moaning. What did she want to do? Kid herself and her lover it wasn’t murder, so they carried on living in that house in the country with roses around the door? Culverhouse and Plunkett both wanted Davis out of the picture. No point bleating once he’d done the deed. Culverhouse turned on Plunkett and warned her there was no turning back. He should have acted sooner.

  Ricky had wanted out at that point; he could see things falling apart. He had checked his bank account to confirm Plunkett transferred the money for the Davis hit and abandoned the Ferris woman. Ricky cleared out as soon as he could and drove south. If he stayed in Leek Wootton, it was only asking for trouble.

  Ricky hadn’t worried about the girl. Someone would find her and Freeman would have her back home before she came to any harm. There was little evidence at Leek Wootton. He’d only used it as a convenient lock-up after Plunkett arranged for Ferris to attend some course or other. Kidnapping Ferris was too simple for words.

  No, he was better off going it alone—no more partners.

  Ricky was on home turf and knew Lewisham and Catford like the back of his hand. He made sure his hideouts were never anywhere near his father’s place on Fordyce Road. The police were sure to watch that property.

  As if he was stupid enough to go somewhere where his face was familiar.

  When he reached London last Tuesday evening, his first job was to ditch the Audi at a breakers yard. He knew the right place—one where the owner owed him a favour. Ricky slipped him a monkey to put a smile on his face. Five hundred quid on a quiet day will do that for many a trader.

  Ricky didn’t need wheels to get around the city. He could travel anywhere he liked without anyone being the wiser. Twenty years undercover was a great training ground. If Plunkett cracked under pressure, Culverhouse would have to handle it. Ricky knew time was the commodity he needed. Just long enough to get the money for those property sales. There were papers to sign, things he couldn’t do from Gran Canaria.

  He’d needed time to think last Wednesday morning. He spent the night in an empty flat in Croydon. A place he�
��d rented for years when undercover. The Met knew of several cover identities he’d used over the years, but the sites he’d used, not so much.

  It would take Freeman ages to untangle the various characters he’d assumed and where he’d lived under what name and background.

  Nearly every place he’d rented across London was sub-let now to someone who had no clue who his landlord was. Ricky was smart at covering his tracks. He’d planned for this eventuality.

  Ricky paid the rents for the flats on the due date without fail. After an undercover role ended, he advertised the flat in the nearest newspaper shop window. The monthly rental was always below the going rate. Every flat got snapped up within hours of the advert appearing in the window.

  The only thing Ricky insisted on, apart from the happy client paying rent on time, was that if he needed a place to sleep, they gave him a bed with no questions asked. Ricky had half a dozen hideouts to move to if the Croydon flat got rumbled. He left that flat with a backpack containing a few essentials. Spare clothes he’d stashed there went in the bag along with the wash kit and toiletries he’d rescued from the Audi.

  Since last Wednesday he’d slept in Croydon, Pinner and Walthamstow. He’d moved around the city as little as possible, keeping a weather eye open for the law. The Met didn’t cause him any headaches. Ricky knew their style. The ones you didn’t know caused the problems.

  The solicitors dragged their feet, as always. Only a matter of time, they said. That’s what you said last week, Ricky shouted down the phone when he called them yesterday.

  He felt the net closing. If only he knew who was hunting him.

  How long after the police found Ferris did Freeman realise there was nothing to stop him from looking for Terry Davis’s secret? That worried Ricky Gardiner.

  He didn’t call Plunkett on principle. He couldn’t ask Culverhouse for news; the swine didn’t answer his calls. That burner phone they used to keep in contact must be in a skip somewhere by now.