by Jay Nadal
Sian I want you to go through the list of contacts on Stone’s phone, five numbers crop up the most, find out who they belong to. One of them must be his supplier.”
Sian nodded her agreement.
“Raj, I want you to get hold of the CCTV footage of both clubs for the last few weeks, let’s see if we can get Fraser in the frame or identify any contact between them, ok?”
“Yep.”
Mike raised his pen to get Scott’s attention as Scott got up to walk over to look out of the window.
“Guv, I’ve been chasing up a few contacts and asking about the Phoenix and Urban. Now I’m not sure how much truth there is in it, but a few said that Fraser was a main dealer and none of them had known of Stone dealing. If you wanted some gear, his clubs were the place to go and get them hassle free.”
There was a long silence whilst Scott stood there. The team were exchanging glances and raising eyebrows, almost having a telepathic conversation between themselves without a word being spoken.
The penny dropped for Scott and he spun around thumping his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Fuck, bollocks, I think I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle.”
“You’ve lost me, Guv.”
“Mike, Fraser is the main dealer. I reckon he was paying Stone a sweetener in return for peddling his shit in the clubs without any hassle. The regular payments make sense now.”
There was a general agreement around the room.
“But that doesn’t account for the seventy-six grand paid to Stone a few years ago.”
“Hang on, Guv,” Sian interrupted, quickly sifting through her notes. “Ok, how about this, Guv? Our investigations into Stone have already shown that he launched both clubs about five years ago. What if Fraser helped fund the clubs, and that seventy-six grand was his share of the business, the timing of the payment seems to correlate?”
“That plus regular payments in return for using the clubs for peddling his shit. Fraser was a silent partner, then.”
“Sounds about right, Guv.”
“And it was a lucrative set up, that someone else wanted to get in on, resulting in them both being taken out….good work, Sian.”
“Thanks, Guv.”
Scott was just about to carry on when Abby burst into the briefing room out of breath having bounded up the flight of stairs two steps at a time.
“Guv, sorry I’m late; I’ve just got off the phone to officers in Southampton. They were dealing with a case a while back involving Fraser. He was the victim of a shooting, looked like attempted murder.
They charged another known supplier by the name of Lee Stubbins and his brother Luke for the crime. Lee’s in Pentonville serving fourteen years, but his brother absconded from custody and was never captured. Lee’s a pretty big drug dealer in the South East, and trying to muscle in on the Brighton drugs scene. He already has operations in Bournemouth, Eastbourne, and Southampton.
Our colleagues in Southampton have intel that he wants greater control of the south coast supply and distribution chain.”
Scott rubbed his hands together, this felt promising. He just needed to find out who wanted it bad enough to kill them, and Stubbins might be wrapped up in this.
“Mike, once Raj has got the CCTV for both clubs, go through them and look for Fraser, also look for anyone going in the backdoor of both clubs. There may have been meetings with whoever wanted to muscle in. Can you cross check with records on file, latest intelligence on the movers and shakers in the drugs scene, and see what you can find? It’s likely we may have the killer captured on video.”
“Perhaps they refused to agree to a deal and well, we know the ending,” added Sian.
Scott was thinking hard. “It’s certainly worth exploring, and it’s all we’ve got at the moment. Let’s crack on and I’ll update the DCI later. We’ll have a briefing update tonight. In the meantime, Abby, you and I need to head to London to have a chat with Lee Stubbins. Can you phone ahead and inform the governor that we need to interview Stubbins.”
“Onto it now, Guv.”
Scott felt that today was going to be a productive day. Good progress had been made on the case and with the press appeals released; he knew that more pieces were going to be falling into place.
Chapter 15
The fifty minute train journey to London flew by. Abby pretty much fell asleep not long after the train had left Brighton, putting that down to a being up much of the night with her youngest who’d been unwell.
Scott had never really enjoyed train journeys, feeling restless particularly on long journeys. He spent his time between listening to some tracks on his phone, dozing for a few moments and running through the case in his mind as he watched the countryside breeze past him. He knew he was getting closer to a breakthrough, he just wasn’t sure in what form that would take.
Visiting Stubbins was a long shot, but if he tried to kill Fraser once, then he could have arranged for a second hit. That wouldn’t explain Stone being taken out. Scott wondered what the connection may be between Stone and Stubbins.
***
As they stood at the visitor’s entrance, Scott couldn’t help but admire the tall walls of this Victorian prison. The first big prison in London, it was now the subject of outdated facilities, extreme overcrowding, rat infestations and deemed not fit for purpose in recent reviews.
Scott had been to Pentonville on a few occasions. Like any visit by a police officer, it was often met with aggressive chanting from inmates and threats of sexual acts they were going to inflict on the officer’s loved ones. Scott knew the police had to be immune to such taunts.
The interview room was a solitary cold place, with white walls and grey floor. A ceiling strip light encased in a wire cage, a metal table and four chairs screwed to the floor with bars over a frosted glass window, all adding to the uninviting atmosphere. The room offered very little in terms of ammunition to be used if anything kicked off.
Scott and Abby sat side by side, they had agreed that Abby would lead and Scott would step in if needed.
The metal door opened and a short but muscular man walked in accompanied by two prison officers, who stood by the entrance once the door was shut, allowing Stubbins to seat himself.
Scott noticed how Stubbins shifted his eyes between the pair of them, but offered no hint of what he was thinking or feeling.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Trent and this is Detective Inspector Baker.”
Stubbins didn’t shift his steely gaze from Abby, “Do I need a brief?” he asked with a deep, measured drawl.
“Well, that depends on if you’ve done anything wrong, Mr Stubbins” Abby replied.
He smiled slightly, “Me? I’m a saint in here, your model inmate,” he offered, looking around the room they were in.
Stubbins didn’t shift his gaze. His eyes locked on Abby. His face was expressionless but menacing at the same time. Momentarily it left Abby somewhat uncomfortable before she regained her confidence.
“We just wanted you to help us with our enquiries on an ongoing case.”
“The police needing my help?” he laughed sarcastically. “I’m honoured, but you’ll get fuck all from me,” his lasts words almost spat out as he leaned forwards aggressively catching Abby, Scott and the guards on the hop. The guards took a few steps forward in readiness but were not needed.
“When’s the last time that you or your associates have any contact with Dave Fraser?”
“No comment.”
“”Have you made any death threats towards Dave Fraser?”
“No comment.”
Stubbins was short but bulky, and very muscular, the result of many years of pumping iron. His face sported dark stubble that seemed to just continue around his face and head at all one length. His dark brown eyes displayed a darkness on all levels. She imagined that he struck fear in those who crossed him.
Scott leant in towards the table, “Dave Fraser was killed a few days ago.”
Stubbi
ns broke into a small smile, his lips pursed. “I know, good news travels fast. I need to shake the hand of the fucker who beat me to it.”
“You going to shake your own hand then?” Scott suggested.
The question was met with a cold stare. “Nothing to do with me.”
“You see the way I see it is you wanted Fraser’s patch, you tried to take him out and failed …miserably,” Scott said, hanging on the words, much to Stubbins’ irritation. “So you arranged for him to be taken out, leaving you in the clear here.”
“No comment.”
“Do you know Edward Stone?”
“No comment.”
“Do you know how to spell comment?” Scott asked, trying to unsettle and get a reaction from Stubbins, but he didn’t take the bait. He sat there, still not averting his gaze from Abby, his eyes moving between meeting her gaze and staring at her breasts.
Scott continued, “Did you know Stone’s dead too, killed the same way.”
That question was met with silence. Scott knew that Stubbins wasn’t going to shift, but he nevertheless needed to rattle Stubbins cage.
“Where’s your brother Luke? Did you get the word out to Luke to do your dirty work? Is he still in Brighton or sunning it in the Costa’s using your money? Perhaps he’s even fucking your bird?” Scott fixed his stare on Stubbins looking for the slightest reaction. Scott had to admit he was good, unfazed by the questions, hiding his reactions well.
Again nothing. Even though there was a need for protocol and patience, Scott just wanted to pick up his chair and wrap it round the arrogant fucker’s head.
Scott leant forward keeping his frustration in check, “Do you know something Lee? I’m going to find the evidence to link you to both of their murders, and you’re going to spend a very… long… long… time in her Majesty’s pleasure.”
Scott noticed a faint flicker in Stubbins eyes. Stubbins had maintained his cool unfazed look. To any observer it would appear that Stubbins was unaffected by Scott’s last comment. Scott knew different, his understanding of eye accessing cues had helped to spot that he’d got to the inmate. The flicker was fear; the flicker was Stubbins panicking,
Stubbins broke off his stare and turned to Scott. “You’ve got this so wrong, I feel sorry for you. There’s only one brain cell between the two of you, and even that’s not working.” His voice was slow and measured.
He then turned to Abby and leered at her maintaining his bravado, “I bet you’re a great fuck in bed.”
Not taking the bait, Abby replied, “You’ll never know.”
With that both officers rose and made their way out of the interview room, the sound of Stubbins swearing behind them. No sooner had Abby left the room; she blew out a sigh of relief. “I don’t like him, Guv. Arrogant fucker.”
“Me neither.”
***
The train journey back home was filled with an ongoing discussion between the two of them. Theories were thrown to and fro. Scott had a feeling that Stubbins was involved in some way, the hard bit was going to be proving it.
Another alert from the high tech unit flashed up on Scott’s phone. Opening the email, he skimmed through the report. There were two documents, one for Fraser’s three phones and the other for his two laptops.
He also opened up their previous reports on Stone’s equipment. As Scott had figured already, there was heavy call traffic between the two. Fraser’s laptops were clean, but his twitter account had lots of cryptic messages that were sent between himself using the username Meaty, to three other accounts with the usernames Dropship, Glitterball and Timetraveller.
Scott believed that the other usernames more than likely would lead back to the key players in Fraser’s supply and distribution chain. Finding who they are would be a harder task.
He took a wild guess that Dropship probably dropped off the goods, Timetraveller was the courier, but he didn’t have a clue who Glitterball was. Scott made a mental note to check if the high tech team had found any evidence of Twitter activity on Stone’s devices as he didn’t see it noted in the earlier report.
Scott forwarded the new report onto Sian asking her to look into Stubbins’ background in more detail. He also instructed her to get onto Twitter and see if they could identify the usernames. He knew that getting the names would be hard due to Twitter’s data protection rules.
Last time he’d tried to obtain user data, he was informed that it would involve lengthy and expensive legal proceedings and a court order from a Californian court. That was enough to put Scott off.
Chapter 16
A few days had passed since Fraser’s murder and a week since Stone met his demise. Scott was confident that the pieces of the jigsaw were starting to fall into place. No doubt it was still too slow for his DCI and Chief Super, who were the ones in the media eye and therefore experienced far more pressure than him to get results.
Raj and Mike had spent hours yesterday trawling through CCTV footage of both the Urban and Phoenix clubs and had been rewarded with grainy footage of Fraser entering the back of the Phoenix. He was carrying large holdalls that appeared to look identical to the one found in Fraser’s house. The good news was that Fraser was seen leaving the club empty-handed, which appeared to confirm Scott’s theory that Fraser was the dealer in all of this.
His theory further validated when forensics confirmed that the traces of white powder found in Stone’s office and other areas of the club were cocaine and chemically matched the white powder found at Fraser’s property.
What piqued Scott’s interest was the evidence of PCP and Ice at the Urban, both Class A drugs. Scott was both alarmed and saddened to read how Ice commonly known as Crystal Meth was starting to find its way onto the drug scene on his patch. He’d only ever come across it in a raid when some officers from Essex had been drafted into a 300-officer drugs raid on an estate in Tower Hamlets.
Reading the reports from forensics and the high tech unit sprawled out over his desk; he was furiously scribbling away conclusions on his notepad. He wrote out the names of the deceased, their associates, the clubs, the type of drugs, Lee Stubbins and then started drawing directional lines between them, with sporadic question marks everywhere.
His head full of facts, figures and theories, Scott could now confirm that Fraser was indeed the supplier. A major supplier at that if he was now bringing in PCP and crystal meth. With Fraser out of the equation, Scott wondered if the supply chain had taken a huge hit, which would come as relief for the Sussex force, or whether the reins would be taken up by his associates.
The fact that the manufacture and distribution of PCP and in particular crystal meth was a highly lucrative business, it was likely that someone else wanted control of its supply locally.
He kept coming back to Lee Stubbins and drawing random question marks around his name. Scott was sure he had a bigger part to play in this, but with a lack of cooperation from Stubbins, he knew he’d need to gather more intel before fully understanding his involvement. With the press release out on Fraser’s murder and a wider appeal on both deaths, Scott was hopeful that further information would come to light.
Scott’s concentration was interrupted when Raj burst through his office door both out of breath and excited.
“Don’t you ever fucking knock, Raj?” Scott shouted out in annoyance and startled shock.
“I’m sorry, Guv. My apologies.”
“Forget it, I should have shut my door whilst going through this stuff,” Scott said as he waved his hand over his desk. “Well what’s so bloody urgent then?”
“Déjà vu, Guv. On the analysis from the hairs found by the path, we have a positive ID for hair fibre found on the second victim, Fraser. Check this out, because it gets better, it’s a match for the one found on Stone.” Raj paused for effect before continuing, “It belongs to that victim from three years ago, the clubber who was killed.”
The news caused Scott to raise a brow as he stared at his scribbles. The one person he’d failed to add
to his page was Stephen Wentworth.
What the fuck is going on here?
“Right, where’s Abby?”
“Abby’s got a few hours off, taking her kid to the doctor or something; she’s not back till 4 p.m.”
“In that case get Mike to pull off the file for Stephen Wentworth immediately.”
“Mike’s a step ahead of you Guv; he’s already printed it off and is on the way up to you any minute.”
Scott swivelled his chair around to look out of the window and reflected on the news, trying to tie up further loose ends. “So it’s looking like the same person who was there when Stephen was killed was present at both of our murders.” He muttered as he talked through his thoughts.
“A friend of Stephen’s who came in contact with him? Revenge maybe?” Raj offered.
“That’s plausible but I can’t imagine hair fibres staying intact for over three years, which would mean that the clothes they wore three years ago hadn’t been washed since.”
At that moment the bulky frame of Mike loomed into view as he poked his head around the corner. “Ok to come in, Guv?”
Scott turned to look plain-faced at Raj with a look of now that’s how you come into my office, leaving Raj looking sheepishly down at his shoes and the floor, in fact anywhere other than in Scott’s direction.
“Okay, Mike, what we got?”
“Stephen Wentworth was killed outside the Urban nightclub three years ago. Charges were brought against the doormen at the time, but the case was dropped due to insufficient evidence. There was talk at the time of intimidation of witnesses but the case was never followed through.”
“I want you and Abby to dig a little bit deeper into the Stephen Wentworth case. We need to cover all angles. He was connected to one of the clubs in question, and more importantly with his fibres being found on both deceased victims…
We could be looking for someone who was close to Stephen at the time of his death. Look at his family, his friends and see if there’s anything worth chasing up there. Get back to me tomorrow with an update.”