by Mike Crowson
* * *
Millicent had the photos of the tread with her when she strode into the interview room. Tommy was sitting there with Sheldon Shields, neither looking at the other, neither speaking. Hampshire switched on the tape recorder.
"D.I. Hampshire, DC Hammond and Sheldon Shields," she said. "Interview in connection with the murder of Simon Hunter. Wednesday 15th August at ..." She glanced at her watch. "3.25 pm."
"Now," she said, turning her attention to Shields. "The statement you gave me yesterday was not accurate. You missed out an important detail."
"What was that?" Shields said.
"That you were at the picnic site sometime Saturday afternoon. You arrived after Hunter and left before he did."
"I was nowhere near the site, wherever it was," said Shield, smoothly and almost convincingly.
"Your car was certainly there," Millicent said heavily. "One of these photographs is of the left front tread marks of the tyre of a car at the picnic site. The other is the left front tyre of your car. They look the same to me."
Hampshire passed the two prints to Shields and waited while he studied them. Eventually he sighed and passed them back.
"Okay," he said. "I was there with Gary Leverett. I followed Hunter's Porsche at a distance. We parked a bit back from the picnic site and walked closer. We saw Hunter's Porsche with the front luggage space open and Hunter lying inside it. He didn't answer when we spoke to him, so Gary felt his pulse. He reckoned the guy was dead so we got out of there in a hurry."
"Why?"
"Isn't that obvious? Here was us wanting him dead and there he was dead, in suspicious circumstances. I thought we'd kept in the clear and we hadn't any information about his killer, so I kept quiet."
"What time was this?"
Shields shrugged. "Not sure," he said. "Before 2 probably, but not much."
Millicent thought he was leaving out a lot, but didn't say so. Apart from anything else, he'd lied to her once and there was no guarantee any of this was true.
"I think I ought to decide whether you can add anything to the information about the murder," she said. "Why were you following Hunter?"
"I overheard him on the phone Friday. He told somebody he had enough shares now and they'd discuss the matter at the usual place at two Saturday."
"That could be vital information for a start," Millicent said. "When and where did you start tailing him."
"We were parked up the road from his house from around twelve fifteen. Just as we arrived, the Porsche shot out of the drive. I nearly lost it, but I followed it to Knowles's. It was there in the drive for a while."
"How many people in the car?"
"It came roaring past me and I didn't get close again. I thought there was just one guy and I assumed it was Hunter."
"Go on."
"The Porsche turned into the drive and stopped. It was almost out of sight - Knowles has a tree lined drive - but I could see the red. We waited down the road a bit, then, about one fifteen or so the Porsche pulled out of the drive again. I followed it at a discreet distance, through Baildon and East Morton to the picnic site. Like I said, I followed it a little way before I stopped and we walked."
"Hold it a minute," Hampshire said. "The Porsche. Was Hunter still driving?"
"I guess so," Shields answered. "I only saw it close the once and I was behind it, but I guess it was him. Who else would it have been?"
"Was Mrs Hunter in it this time?"
"Well ..." Shields thought about it. "She easily could have been," he said. "Those head rest things look like a person and I never thought about it. If she said she was there I'd have to say maybe and if someone swore he was alone, I'd still have to say maybe."
Millicent thought this was unhelpful and the frustration showed in her expression. Was Shields still hedging his bets or was he genuinely unsure? At any rate, his story and Shirley's could not both be true. Either the Hunters drove to the picnic site at eleven thirty or they drove to Knowless at twelve fifteen: both could not correct. Which, if either, was the truth? She turned her attention and the interrogation to the picnic site.
"You said you got out of your car," she said, and asked, "Did both you and Leverett get out at the same time?"
"Sure."
"Then what?"
"We walked up to the site. We found the Porsche, like I said. Hunter was lying in the front of it, dead."
"How far would you say you were behind Hunter?"
"Not far."
"How long?"
Shields hesitated. "Just round the corner from Knowles's place I nearly ran into him, so I pulled a bit further back. I almost lost him in Baildon I was so far behind, but I saw him from the crest of a hill. He turned towards East Morton. At that point I'd say he was five or six minutes ahead of us, no more."
Hampshire sighed. "That's another thing. If you saw him drive there and you followed five minutes behind, there was just five minutes for someone to kill him and that's not long."
"I guess not," Shields admitted, "but that's the way it was."
"You didn't see anyone?"
"I told you, one of the reasons we decided to keep quiet was because we didn't see anyone or anything."
"Were the doors of the Porsche closed?" Hampshire asked, again changing the subject slightly
Shields thought about it. "The doors were closed I think, but the hood was up. That is, the front luggage compartment lid was up."
"Interesting," Hammond observed. "I'd forgotten a Porsche has a rear engine. Were there picnic things out on the picnic table?"
Millicent thought that was a very good question indeed, considering that the story Shirley Hunter had told was looking increasingly untrue.
Shields hesitated. "I didn't really notice," he said slowly. "But I'd say not. I don't think there was any sign of a picnic and I don't think there would have been time to set things out, but I wasn't looking, you know"
"Was there any damage to the front of the Porsche", Hampshire asked.
"Again I can't say I noticed. If there had been anything much I'd have seen it, I think."
"Any sign of injury on Hunter?"
Shields shrugged. "You don't look that hard when you're in a panic! When Leverett said he was dead we lit out of there pretty quick."
"Did you see any other vehicle?" Tommy Hammond asked.
Shields shook his head. "A couple of cars passed me going the other way as I was driving out of Baildon. There was nothing in the picnic area. Just after I pulled back onto the road a red saloon pulled off the grass verge at the side of the lane."
"Was it there when you arrived?" Millicent asked.
"I don't think so," Shields responded, vague as much of his statement on this occasion had been.
"What make was it?" Tommy asked.
Shields shook his head again. "It was just a glance and I was driving. Try asking Leverett."
"Had you seen it before?" Tommy persisted.
Shield shrugged but he looked worried. "There are a lot of red cars," he said, "I don't reckon so. Ask Leverett."
Hampshire thought abut the possible implications, and where Shirley Hunter and Ellen Barnes could possibly fit into a revised story. As Shields had remarked, there are plenty of red cars and this was probably nothing to do with the crime. Only probably, though. Hampshire decided to leave this unresolved for the moment and turned to the question of Leverett's wife.
She tried to sound casual as she asked a key question. "What does Leverett's wife do for a living?"
Shields looked surprised at the question, but in no way worried. "She's a doctor," he said. "I think she's involved in that group of doctors on Bradford Road. In the Health Centre there. Why?"
"Just wondered," Millicent said, thinking that Shields and Leverett would certainly have had a route for acquiring morphine and there was only Shields's word for it that he'd overheard a conversation at all. On the other hand, if he was telling the truth it sounded as if Hunter went to the picnic site for an appointment wi
th the murderer. Why had he gone to Knowles's house though, and why had he been driving like a madman to get there? That was a thought.
"When Hunter drove to Knowles, do I gather he was driving differently from driving from his house?" she asked.
"I'll say," Shields answered "I couldn't keep up with him jumping lights and cutting corners. Later on he was driving much better and more moderately. That's how come I nearly smashed into him and had to drop back."
Millicent nodded, unsure of the significance. The evidence certainly pointed to Shields being at the murder scene, but his revised statement covered that. There was - so far anyway - nothing else against him. She decided to let him go for now.
"Detective Constable Hammond will transpose this interview into a statement. After you've signed it you can go," Hampshire said. She stood up. "But we may have more questions for you later and we'll certainly want to talk to Mr Leverett," she added and went out, leaving Hammond to it.
By the time Millicent had returned to the incident suite Lucy Turner was there, just arrived back from interviewing Gloria Cullen.
"Nothing helpful," Lucy said, in answer to Millicent's enquiry about what she had learned from Ms. Cullen. "She's about thirty, married with a husband who's as cycling mad as she is."
"What does the O'Connor woman's alibi look like?" Hampshire asked.
"Good as far as it goes, but not complete," Lucy said. "They were together from about eight thirty until around one thirty."
"That would given her a maximum of half an hour to get back to the picnic site, assuming Shields's story is true the second time around."
"You caught him out telling porkies, did you?"
Millicent told her the story.
"It's a bit thin but hard to disprove," Lucy observed. "D'you believe him?"
"I don't actually believe any of them completely," Millicent said. "I'll leave it as possible for the moment and look for anything to prove or disprove it. I hope Bright strikes lucky with neighbours. Someone must have seen them leave. I'll have to talk to Knowles again and to Shirley Hunter, but it would be nice to have something more than Shield's story for leverage."
"I got the Cullen woman to sign a statement before I left," Lucy said. "There's one thing not in the statement I think you ought to be aware of."
"And what's that?"
"The Cullens have at least four bikes between the two of them, maybe more. Rosie O'Connor could've used one of their bikes."
Millicent thought about it. "Bikes are easier to borrow than cars," she said. "The O'Connor woman said she used her own and she probably did, at least she did if she's innocent. If she used someone else's bike to cover her tracks we'd have the very devil proving it."
At that moment Tony Gibbs returned, so Lucy wandered off to type up her notes and enter Gloria Cullens statement in the database.
Lucy stopped just behind PC Downing, who was still entering notes from earlier.
"Bloody computer crashed, didn't it," Gail Downing remarked. "I lost nearly an hour's work and all the IT support technician did was switch the damn thing off and switch it back on again. Smug git."
Lucy laughed. "Listen," she said. "Car was speeding along the motorway. There were three passengers. An electrician, a motor mechanic and an IT technician. Suddenly the engine cut out. No warning: it just cut out dead and the car rolled to a halt. The electrician said, 'The engine just cut out so it must be electrical.' The mechanic said. 'It may be the belt driving the overhead cam shaft.' The IT technician said, 'I can fix it, no problem. Close all the windows and everybody get out of the car. So they all got out. Then he said, now get back in again. They all got back in again and he aid "Now see if it starts." The driver tried the ignition and the car started OK."
Gail Downing laughed. "It's a bit too close to the truth," she said.
Millicent was listening from across the room, but she was addressing Tony Gibbs at the same time.
"So, what did you turn up about Doctor Leverett, Tony?" Millicent asked. "Anything interesting?"
"Not really, no," he answered, pulling out his notebook and consulting it. "Her name is Doctor Gwen Leverett. She's part of the practice at the Health Centre on Bradford Road. She's in her late thirties and fairly popular. She seems to have a good reputation. She has cautiously dabbled in drug rehabilitation, but it's all above board, as far as anyone knows."
"We now know she's Gary Leverett's wife," Millicent remarked, "Because Shields admitted that Mrs Leverett was a GP at the Bradford Road Heath Centre. That's not proof of anything, though."
"Nothing of note there, I'd say," Gibbs agreed. "Do you want me to start going through her records?"
"Very time consuming to go through her records and the hospital records and the very devil to provide solid proof of anything. I think we'll leave that for a day or two and see whether any alternative shows up first."
Gibbs looked relieved. "I wasn't looking forward to the job," he admitted.
"Her involvement with drug rehabilitation ties in with what Rosie O'Connor said," Millicent remarked. "OK, she continued. Tommy and Tony, go pick up Leverett, cross examine him thoroughly, especially any discrepancies between his story and Shields's. Get a full statement. Lucy!"
DS Turner looked up from the computer. "At your service," she said.
"Go round and have another go at Barnes and Dent. Firstly, Shirley's story looks thinner and that casts doubt on Barnes's version of events. Second, several of the items on the till slip are identical with items found at the picnic site. Read the report from forensic and see if they change their story."