by CA Sole
‘I could break into his house and burn it down,’ I continued, grumbling stupidly. ‘I could also give him a severe beating, but all that would achieve is a great deal of satisfaction and it would be criminal. I can’t afford to do anything illegal, I’m already standing on melting ice with my legs either side of a razor’s edge.’
Juliet ignored the pitiful attempt at humour, ‘I could make the letter sound as if it was written by an elderly lady twitcher. We could do it now, put it on a flash drive and have it printed in an internet cafe, avoiding use of your printer which might be identified. I don’t know, can they identify printers?’
I suddenly saw that this might not be such a silly idea after all, ‘It will only be worthwhile if we can hack all their mobile phones: Sandra’s, Tony's and Mandy’s, because their reaction to the letter is bound to be discussed and we might be able to get Wiggins' location.’
‘Hacking’s illegal, don’t you pay attention to anything in the news?’ Her curtness was wounding.
‘Sandra knew that you existed, and Giles swears he never mentioned you to her, so I have a strong feeling that my phone is being monitored. I’ll bet we can find a private sleuth that will do it for enough money and keep quiet about it. With the information from telephone calls it’ll be worthwhile and there’s no reason for the details to come out in court. I’ll do some research now while you work on the letter.’
I made us a salad to share and we munched on that as Detective Chief Inspector Carter gave a briefing on the lunchtime news. He said what a shocking and savage attack it was and that the police were doing everything in their power to bring the culprit to justice. Already they had interviewed two persons and their inquiries were continuing. It was still early in the investigation, but they were confident that an arrest would be made in the near future. He made the usual plea for any witnesses to come forward, and I thought of the old lady that had squeezed her car past mine in the lane.
‘Interviewed two persons?’ I said, ‘Why only two, we know that was Sandra and me, why haven’t they talked to Wiggins?’
‘He must be hiding.’
‘I know why I haven’t been arrested!’ We were then looking at the video footage of the reporter in the bean field where the attack had taken place, and could see how the whole area outside the police tape behind him had been trampled down by the ambulance crew, all the police activity and the press now that the SOCOs had finished. ‘His feet left impressions in the ground before mine and everyone else’s. Carter knows there was another person involved before I got there. Great! Once they eventually find him they can connect him through the footprints.
‘I think we should hand deliver this letter of yours to be absolutely certain it gets there when we want it to. The trouble is we don’t even know where he lives.’
‘I do,’ she answered with only a trace of smugness, ‘I found out while I was researching his relationship with Sandra.’
In the end, after half an hour composing the letter, Juliet decided that we should not have the phones hacked. She pointed out that the police could do it better with their resources as well as legally with a warrant and, given that Anthony Wiggins had gone missing, they would almost certainly be doing it already. I disagreed, ‘The letter will have no benefit to us on its own. We may stir up a hornets’ nest and not know about it. Tapping the phones will forewarn us of any adverse reaction from them and hopefully help us find the man. We can’t guarantee that Carter will tap the phones, and I want to know as soon as possible where Wiggins is. I want to get to him before the police do.’
‘That’s a silly attitude,’ she said, ‘Being focused on revenge is detracting from solving this, and it will lead you into all sorts of trouble.’
I didn’t respond to that. In any case, after an age of research, I eventually had to give in and drop the idea of hacking. ‘It seems easy enough to buy software that you can use to monitor someone’s phone for messages,’ I explained, ‘but what we want is to listen to the actual conversations, and you can’t do that without installing an app on the target phone. That then links to your computer and you can listen in to the recording it leaves. That’s almost impossible to do as we would never get to all their phones. It is, as you pointed out, illegal, and it would be daft to tempt fate considering that it’s possible for the authorities to trace the origin of the spying.’
Juliet followed me when I went to the kitchen to make coffee. ‘So,’ I said, ‘let’s look at how we can get the best out of this letter. In simple terms, if they fall for it, then Aunt Alice will have to give instructions on where and when to drop the money. We can be sure that their aim will be to identify Alice and then get rid of her, and there will be at least three of them watching. I mean that Wiggins might have another bloke he could call on to help as well as Sandra and his wife, Mandy.’
‘Then we have to make sure that Alice is protected when she picks up the money.’
‘I’ve already got an idea on that. I wouldn’t mind betting that they won’t leave real money, though, they’ll leave a bag of newspaper or something. Their aim will be to get to Alice and they won’t need to use money for that. They only need to identify her.’
‘What happens if they ignore the threat and come after you?’
‘Well in that case, there’s not much we can do. Alice can send them another letter, a final warning, but in the end we’re powerless and will have to trust the police to do their job.
‘Unlike her thuggish brother, Sandra is anything but stupid, and if she is directing operations she’ll know that every move they make will be yet another opportunity for clues to be left, clues that the police will eventually put together. She’ll realise it’s a downward spiral, so I don’t think they’ll take any action with me until they’re sure that Alice doesn’t exist and has not gone to the police. And that will be after an amount of time. Also, why would they have a go at me when I’m a leading suspect? They would reduce my profile of guilt. I don’t think they can afford to ignore the letter, though, do you?’
Juliet finalised the note and agreed with me that it needed to be hand delivered to be read as early as possible. She had done a convincing job of emulating an ageing female twitcher, and we felt it looked authentic:
“Hello.
On Monday morning I was out on the ridge amongst the chestnut trees, trying to spot a turtle dove that frequents the area at this time of year, and my friend is convinced she’s seen it there. It will soon migrate south as the weather cools, so it was important to me that I went out now while the weather is good to try and see it. Anyway, I was sitting in the grass in a spot where there were no nettles (don’t you think that the population of nettles is growing every year? Blasted things!) I was looking down into the trees below me on the slope through my binoculars. I’ve a lovely pair that were given to me by my late husband, they are made by Zeiss and very powerful. Germans are so good at that sort of thing, are they not?
I was looking for the bird when just at the edge of my view I saw a silver sports car drive into the field below me. Being curious as to why someone would stop there in such a car, I focussed on it. I saw you hit another man over the head with some sort of club. It was a vicious blow and I gasped in shock and surprise and dropped the binoculars. When I had them again and looked down to the car once more, I was trembling and could hardly see properly, but I soon had a clear view of you, and the other man was lying in the beans, I could just see his feet sticking out. You threw the club away and ran off. Then another man came along in a Jeep and found the body. He used his phone, for the police I suppose. I was frightened as I wasn’t sure where you were so I left as fast as I could.
The thing is that I know you, and I would recognise you again. I know where you live, it’s near me and I’ve seen you about, but I don’t know your name. I could ask the postman, and he’d tell me, but I don’t think that would be a problem for the police either, do you?
I haven’t told the police yet because I have some debt that my dear hu
sband left me with that has to be settled, but I don’t have the money for it. I don’t want much, because I don’t want to be greedy, I just need help. Let us say £20,000. If you pay me this within a week, I will not say a word. That’s a promise.
You gather the money together by Friday and I’ll let you know how to pay me later on. I won’t tell you where to find me because you’re plainly a murderer and you might try to kill me! I may be elderly but I’m not stupid.
Alice”
‘Well done Miss Alice, well done. Very nicely put. Let’s hope they fall for it and start talking to one another.’
She didn’t respond to my tone, ‘Have you organised a solicitor?’
‘No, I meant to, but there hasn’t been time. I’ve no idea who, so I’ll have to call the chap Giles was using for his will, Julian Brady, and ask him to recommend someone.’
‘Call him now,’ she ordered, ‘It’s only just gone five and he should still be in the office, unless he’s playing golf or something.’
Julian Brady listened to my sorry story. He knew me and knew how close Giles and I were. It was important to me to have some support, for someone other than Juliet to believe me, but he was involved in Giles' affairs and was not going to offer any opinions. He suggested two names, but by the time we had finished talking both of them had left the office. First thing tomorrow it would have to be.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Juliet typed the letter onto a memory stick that contained a portable, open-source word processing programme. We reckoned that by doing that there would be no trace of the letter left on her laptop, although whether that was true, we really didn’t know. Then, to protect against fingerprints by wearing a pair of white cotton gloves, she went into an internet cafe and printed it. To the assistant’s inquiring look at her gloves, she merely said ‘eczema’ and put the sheet of paper into an equally sterile envelope.
The previous day’s rain had vanished, but pale grey clouds hung overhead as we drove to the area of the Wiggins' house while it was still light. They lived in No. 13, a modest semi-detached house in a long row of similar buildings on Willow Street, which did not have, nor was ever likely to have, any willows on it. The road led off Forest Avenue and was situated about half way up a small hill, curving gently around it before joining the main road. Two other, progressively longer streets did the same thing below it. All the odd numbered houses were on the uphill side of the streets. Behind the house was woodland stretching to the hilltop on which sat a mobile phone mast and a large concrete water reservoir.
We were in Juliet’s Volvo, because my Land Rover would have been far too obvious and recognisable. She was keeping her eyes out for police in any shape or form who might be watching the house for Wiggins. I was looking for CCTV cameras that might be strategically placed on the street and only found one at the junction where Willow Street met the main road.
Juliet’s mood had improved slightly, probably as a result of doing something positive. Nevertheless, I kept my distance, difficult though it was. She wanted little to do with me, yet I wanted everything to do with her and the resulting tension was uncomfortable.
‘I can’t see anybody who looks like a copper in disguise,’ she said, ‘whatever they may look like.’
‘Let’s go round the other crescents just to lose a bit of time, then back round Willow the other way. The reflection is stopping us seeing through some of the windscreens on these parked vehicles. This time check the wing mirrors for any sign of a driver.’
Juliet said, ‘If Wiggins does come home occasionally, he’s going to use the woods and come in the back. The police must surely have that area under surveillance.’
‘It’s the obvious thing for them to do and it makes things difficult, because we’ll never spot a watcher in the woods. I’m going to have to get to the house via a neighbour once it gets dark.’
There was a small white van parked about fifty yards up the road from Wiggins' house. As we drove past, Juliet exclaimed, ‘There’s a man in that one. He’s sitting very low in his seat, I only just made him out in his mirror because he moved.’
‘Keep looking, there might be others or he’s not the one.’
Darkness was descending and I felt that the sun was long over the yardarm. ‘We could retire to the pub for a quick one while we wait,’ I suggested in an attempt to inject some light-heartedness into the conversation, ‘but it would be silly to dull the senses at this stage. We’ll just have to suffer.’ Instead, we parked on the edge of Trident Park next to a soccer pitch and discussed what to do. Even though the light was fading, some youths were kicking a ball around accompanied by a lot of shouting and swearing. We watched them until they eventually gave up. Apart from an occasional siren from an emergency vehicle and the rise and fall of engine noise in the town below, it became quite dark and peaceful.
‘This is the ideal place for them to drop the money,’ I said. ‘Beyond these playing fields, this park is pretty big with plenty of trees, and they’re all spaced well apart from each other so we can see right across the area. Can you see that telephone box under the street lamp on the far side? That can serve as one reference point. The other thing is that Wiggins lives nearby and therefore so does Auntie Alice, so she would know it well and it’s a place close to home that she would choose. Let’s have a quick drive around it for a preliminary recce, we can look at it in more detail in daylight tomorrow.’ Although it was then dark and difficult to see, there were no obvious impediments to using Trident Park for our purposes.
Avoiding the junction with the CCTV camera, Juliet drove into the crescent below Willow and parked. We walked together until we had reached the road and then Juliet walked on, past the white van, past Wiggins's house to No. 17, two doors further on. I followed until I reached No. 5, four houses before Wiggins and behind the van. The entrances to most of the houses were lit by porch lights or more dimly from the street lighting, but between the buildings it was dark. I pulled on my gloves and hopped over the low hedge of No. 5 to disappear into the shadows separating it from No. 7, hopefully while the man in the white van was watching Juliet knock on the door of No. 17. I always have difficulty in knowing what to say to strangers, but she was perfectly capable of striking up a conversation and asking where so-and-so lived, and was it the right street, and what a lovely cat and generally wasting their time. I went to the back of No. 5 and could see past several houses over the low fences. I had a sudden vision of all the women ensuring that the hanging of their washing on the line was a simultaneous act so that rich gossip could be exchanged across the boundaries of several houses. A bonus was that neither Mrs 7 nor Mrs 9 had taken their washing in that day, which gave me good cover as I scrambled over these barriers.
Mrs 11, however, had a six foot fence enclosing her garden which would give me better cover, but I had to get over both sides without a sound. I wondered where the police watcher was placed at the back. If it were me, depending on the arc of visibility and the cover, I would have been in the trees directly opposite the back fence. If he were there, then he would not see me in No. 11 because of the high fence panels. Alternatively, he might be positioned with a line of sight directly along the row of back fences, in which case he wasn’t likely to see me at all. Wherever he was, I had to consider the situation with the greatest risk.
I looked around for something substantial to stand on. There was a bicycle at the back door. That would have to do, so I took it and leaned it against the fence in the dark gap between the houses. Carefully, so as not to have a noisy accident, I climbed up the bike and was able to slither over the fence and drop down the other side. The smell of dog mess was very strong, and I had images of a vicious beast leaping on me, or many little yappers raising the dead with their shrieks.
I kept below the light from the kitchen window of No. 11 and moved back into the dark gap that separated it from Wiggins' house. One more high fence and I would be at his back door. This time there was a tree stump to step on and I climbed quickly over th
e top having peered around his yard. If someone was watching from the woods, he might have seen me, but it was dark enough to make that difficult, unless he had night vision goggles, of course. Once over the fence and between the buildings, I dropped to my belly and went round the front of the house towards the porch. Too low to be visible to the van behind Wiggins' hedge, I reached up and pushed the envelope into his letter box. Job done, now to get out.
Secure in the darkness at the back of the house, I paused. Low down, lower than the fence, I glimpsed the faint passing of a shadow through the bars of the back gate. A fox? A badger? A dog? Or a man on his knees? Movement gives the quarry away, movement is what alerts the hunter. Only my eyes moved as I searched for the source of the shadow; nothing. I had to take the risk and leave immediately. If that was Wiggins, the police would be moving into position, and I could be in the way. Once again, keeping below the kitchen lights, I wormed my way round to Wiggins' far fence and slithered over it. Fortunately, the hedges between the next two properties at the back were low. Then, in full view of anyone, I stood up and walked round the front of No. 19 and out onto the road.
I heard an engine start behind me, glanced round and saw the lights of the van come on. As it pulled out into the road and the lights swung away from me, I dived over the nearest hedge and lay still. Had I been spotted by the watcher at the back who had radioed to the van, or had he seen Wiggins? The vehicle moved slowly along the road, the driver obviously looking closely for something. As it drew abreast of my position, it stopped. So did my heart. The driver got out. My breathing was too noisy. Between the thin trunks at the base of the hedge, my one eye, the other pressed against the damp ground, could just make out his legs. He walked down the road a few paces. There was a brief radio conversation that I couldn’t hear. Then he returned and got back in the van. He drove down the road a little way, turned around and parked in his original spot. I breathed normally again.