Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘But what if they find it?’ Aisha’s mother said.

  ‘They haven’t found it up to now have they?’ Bhandal said.

  ‘But what if they’re watching us? What if they follow us?’

  The uncle spoke. ‘They’ve found the car. I said we should have burned it.’

  ‘But they don’t know who drove it there, do they?’ Bhandal’s tone a mix of aggression and defence in equal measure. ‘They had Baljit’s fingerprints from it but he’s explained those away. If they had a witness who could identify him, they wouldn’t have let him go. It’s the same with the bank card. They accepted it was a mistake.’

  ‘What about the phone?’ his wife asked.

  ‘Used once and lost in the River Thames.’

  ‘You hope,’ the wife told him. ‘You said the settee was burned. I told you not to trust that fat man. Burn the settee, you told him.’

  Both officers winced when they heard the slap and the woman’s anguished yelp.

  ‘Shut up, woman,’ Bhandal shouted. ‘If you had brought your daughter up to have less love of Western ideas and more respect for our ways, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t bring you over so you could raise a whore.’

  ‘You let her go to college,’ the mother shouted. ‘I told you to get her married before she left school. Nobody would have asked where she was.’

  The two LP cops nodded. One whispered. ‘She’s right. They’d have played the racist card and we’d have run a mile.’

  The mother was on a defiant roll, red cheek or not. ‘You said let her finish college. Why? That’s where she met the boy. That’s where it all started. I kept her in. College was where it went wrong, and you let her stay.’

  This time the sound was a full-blown scream of pain followed by sobs.

  ‘Shut up, woman. Can a man get no respect in his own house.’

  The officers looked at each other.

  ‘What do you think?’ the younger one asked.

  ‘If we send the cops round to a domestic, they’ll wonder who called it in,’ the other reasoned, torn between instinct and the integrity of their operation. ‘When the neighbours deny it, they’ll start wondering… He’s hit her twice, though.’

  They listened to silence.

  ‘It’s quiet now. Give it a few minutes. If it starts again, we call it in via Ed Whelan. We can’t sit here worrying about blowing the job when she’s getting a hiding or worse.’

  When the empty space was filled, it was the uncle who spoke.

  ‘In this country, do they need a body to prosecute?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bhandal told him before the silence returned.

  A no-body prosecution was possible but rare and never easy. The prosecution team needed to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the victim was dead before they even began the task of proving murder.

  The older cop explained it when he saw the unspoken question flash across young colleague’s face.

  ‘What about the boy?’ It was the uncle again.

  ‘What about him?’ Bhandal’s voice was pitiless. ‘Just a worthless piece of humanity. Fox food.’

  ‘Fox food?’ the younger cop murmured.

  The other whispered. ‘Could mean anything, but foxes tend to operate in the open countryside and above ground.’

  Perhaps the boy was dead and dumped somewhere, providing they weren’t being led up a blind alley.

  ‘We’ll mention it to Ed,’ the older said. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time people have found probes and just given us the run-around.’

  ‘Hi Bev.’ Sam shuffled in the passenger seat, pressed the phone to her ear, and listened. ‘Spot on. Cheers.’

  She turned to Ed. ‘Everybody’s provided a swab. We’ve got something to compare now. They’ll have the profiles off the cigarettes and gum tomorrow.’

  Now it was Ed’s turn to answer his mobile. ‘Tom, how’s it going?’

  He turned to Sam and quickly mouthed ‘Tom King’.

  ‘What, now? We’re snowed under today, Tom. How about tomorrow?’

  He slowed down and depressed the clutch, one hand on the wheel, the other around the phone. Sam changed gear for him with her right hand. ‘Look I’m driving… okay, I’ll come now, but we’ve only got 10 minutes… Where?’

  He stopped at the lights. ‘Yeah, I know it.’

  Ed rang off and dropped the phone into the centre console.

  ‘He says it’s urgent,’ Ed glanced at Sam. ‘We’re meeting him on the marina, near Giorgio’s pizzeria. He’s already there.’

  The tall figure of the young doorman stood out, hands in his jean’s pockets, staring at each approaching car. He walked over when he saw Ed parking up.

  ‘You remember DCI Parker?’ Ed said, as he and Sam got out.

  They all leaned against the railings, Tom in the middle, each watching people on the decks of their boats, all busy with ropes and fenders in the way boat people always seem to be busy with something. The fishy smell of the sea was strong but the screeching gulls seemed to be flying higher than usual, the collateral benefit a drop in their decibel level.

  ‘I saw my mother last week.’ Tom's eyes never strayed from the marina, his voice flat, without emotion. ‘She said you were sound, knew you from the old days as she put it, remembered you were one of the ones who did try to help her.’

  Ed spoke. ‘I’ve always tried to be fair, treat people right. A decent woman your mother, just mixed up with the wrong bloke.’

  Tom still stared straight ahead when he spoke again.

  ‘Sunday,’ he said quietly. ‘I was on the tow path.’

  Sam and Ed’s heads whipped around to look at Tom. He looked at neither, kept his eyes on the boats.

  ‘I saw one of the dickheads from the pub with a ginger lass, standing under a tree. Certain it was him, although I was on the opposite side. They had their backs to me, but turned around when they heard me. That’s when I saw their faces. I know it was dark, but it wasn’t too bad, and they used a Zippo to light their cigarettes, lit up part of the faces. Then a lad walked past them, pissed. He was all over the shop. That’s it, but my mam said I should tell you, that it might be important. I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt.’

  Ed nodded once. ‘When you saw them, were you standing still?’

  Tom finally turned his face from the water and shook his head,

  ‘I was walking towards them,’ he said. ‘I was past them when I saw the pissed lad. By then I had my back to the two under the tree.’

  ‘What time was this?’ Ed asked him.

  ‘Half three.’

  ‘Did you see anybody else?’

  Tom turned his eyes back to the marina and the slow-churning water, silent for a moment.

  ‘I did see a lass walking towards me,’ he said. ‘She was on the same side of the tow path as me but I never took any notice of her. I was too busy watching what was going on over the other side.’

  Ed shot a glance at Sam.

  ‘Would you recognise any of the people again,’ he looked back at Tom.

  The doorman looked up to the gulls falling and soaring above them.

  ‘Probably the two under the tree but not the drunk lad,’ Tom told them. ‘He was bent over, face down at the floor. I remember he was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and bright orange trainers.’

  Sam pushed herself away from the railings.

  R v Turnbull spelled out the guidance for identification evidence and she knew any identification by Tom would be open to challenge.

  ADVOKATE was the pneumonic thousands of police officers used to remember the rules of identification: A - amount of time suspect under observation; D - distance from the witness; V –visibility... and so on, everything that should be covered in a witness statement when identification was an issue.

  Fleeting glimpses, at night and across a river, would be closely scrutinised.

  But if Tom’s ID evidence was corroborated by DNA profiles on the discarded cigarettes and chewing gum, the case became
a little tighter. It still didn’t prove Prince and Davies were the killers, but putting them on the tow path when a person wearing the same trainers as Glen Jones was walking towards them less than 150 metres from where his body was found would start to build a case.

  ‘Tom, we might need you to look at some CCTV footage from the club,’ Sam spoke for the first time. ‘See if you can identify the two under the tree.’

  Tom King, tall and brushed with sadness, held her eyes.

  ‘Fair enough, but I’ll only do it with Ed.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Sam’s phone rang. 10.33am.

  ‘Slow down, Bethany. What’s wrong? Wait a minute.’

  Sam waved the phone at Ed, indicating that he pull over, then dropped her hand to dangle the mobile near her ankle.

  ‘She’s really upset,’ she whispered.

  Her finger tapped the icon for speakerphone. ‘What is it, Bethany? Try and speak slowly.’

  The voice was ragged and quick, Sam’s words lost in the girl’s tumult.

  ‘What if Aisha’s ran away and it’s all my fault because I sent her a photograph on Messenger when she was drunk on a bed wearing hardly any clothes and everybody saw it.’

  Racking sobs replaced the anguished torrent, sobs as loud and as quick as the words they silenced.

  ‘Bethany, where are you?’

  ‘Victoria Park.’

  ‘Wait there. We’ll be there in 10 minutes. Can you do that for me?’

  Bethany was sitting underneath a huge sycamore tree like a child upset or sulking, knees under her chin, head down, and arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

  The detectives walked across to her. She looked up, cheeks wet and glistening.

  Sam bent down and ran her hand across the last of the dew hiding under the tree, resisting the sun. She sat down beside the frightened teenager. Her trousers would dry. Ed moved a few steps away.

  Sam put her arm on the girl’s. ‘Bethany, the photograph? Where was it taken? How was Aisha drunk?’

  The girl looked at Sam, eyes damp. ‘We’d been to the Jolly Roger.’

  ‘Aisha?!’ Sam didn’t mean to interrupt but even as a cop some things still shocked. ‘Everybody we’ve talked to said she wasn’t even allowed out.’

  Bethany sniffed and rubbed her nose.

  ‘She wasn’t, but this one time, maybe a week before her mother told her she would have to marry that guy, we went out. An Asian doctor was having a house party. He saw Aisha’s dad and asked if she could come.’

  Aisha’s dad had been pleased, Bethany told them. The doctor had a son a year older than Mia and Aisha’s dad had been happy she was socialising with a doctor, even agreed she could sleep over.

  Bethany heaved in some air and looked back down.

  ‘We went with a couple of lads we met in the pub,’ she spoke again. ‘Ended up in their house. Aisha came over all funny and crashed for a couple of hours on their bed. I was downstairs. I had to give her loads of coffee just to get her back to the doctor’s house. I didn’t know they’d taken a photograph of her until I saw it on Facebook. I sent it to her on the Saturday, the day after she went missing. I forgot about her family taking her phone. I just never thought.’

  Bethany’s slender shoulders shook as the sobs returned.

  Sam looked up at Ed. Words weren’t needed. The photograph, not Aisha’s stolen kiss, may have been the final straw.

  ‘So you sent it on the Saturday,’ Sam said. ‘Okay. Let’s go back. It all happened maybe a week before, but it wasn’t until the Saturday you sent Aisha the photograph. Why?’

  ‘I only just got it that day,’ Bethany answered quietly. ‘I’m not Facebook friends with the lads. Elle sent it to me. Elle’s from college. It was her older sister who showed her the photo. Her sister didn’t know we knew Aisha.’

  Sam felt a surge, a snap that zigzagged through her brain.

  ‘What’s Elle’s sister called?’

  ‘Tracey,’ Bethany said. ‘Tracey Davies. She had been raging, had messaged me to say Aisha wasn’t the only one they’d photographed. She told me not to worry,’ Bethany’s voice was breaking. ‘She told me they’d get what was coming to them. She didn’t know Aisha, but she said it wasn’t right. I wish I’d never sent it.’

  Sam waited for the tears to slow.

  ‘Did you know the lads’ names Bethany?’

  Bethany’s eyes were red, a little swollen even.

  ‘The two who are dead,’ Bethany said, so quietly Sam had to strain to hear. ‘Jack and Glen.’

  Sam and Ed were in Sam’s office at Seaton St George police station. Bethany had declined a lift to college saying she’d walk, that she needed the fresh air.

  Sam was pacing.

  ‘Tracey Davies just keeps coming more and more into the frame,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s see if we can find her and Elliott on CCTV on Sunday night, see what they were wearing and go and recover their clothes. Get their shoes.’

  Ed looked up from his A4 pad, another scenario taking shape in his mind.

  ‘What if Aisha’s family saw the photo? The shame. The anger. What if they identified Glen and Jack, identified the others?’

  Sam had been running the same thought but still wasn’t convinced the others were linked. They might well have been pushed in, but they could just as easily have fallen. While they had all been on the tow path, only Jack and Glen had head injuries and didn’t die by drowning.

  She kicked off her black shoes with the sensible heels and continued her pacing barefoot.

  ‘The media, students and stupid editors driving around pissed with prostitutes next to them might think we have a serial killer on the loose, but we’re the ones who run the job, decide whether they form part of a series,’ she said. ‘Jack and Glen almost certainly do. Sneak up behind and hit them with a blunt instrument, albeit different weapons. The blow killed Glen outright. Jack gets finished off with a carrier bag. Both ways their deaths were much more certain than just pushing someone in the river.’

  Sam paused and sat down.

  Students sadly did drown in rivers. It happened. And if they were tragic but accidental drownings, what better location for a cold-blooded killer than a place where there had already been four deaths.

  She had been thinking out loud, Ed listening.

  ‘So if Aisha’s family found out about Glen and Jack, about what they had done, they beat the shit out of them, maybe kill them,’ he said when Sam fell silent. ‘Even if the family’s already killed Aisha, what Glen and Jack were part of would still be seen as an insult to the family, a dishonourable act that would have to be avenged.’

  Sam had another moment, struggling to see such a brutal code in play in a small English seaside town in the 21st century.

  ‘Jesus, we’re not living 500 years ago,’ she said.

  ‘Try telling them that,’ Ed snorted.

  ‘Reality is it’s just as likely Aisha ran and that the Sisters of Macavity decided to dish out the punishments,’ Sam was back on her feet, back on the move.

  The ringing phone brought her back to her desk.

  ‘Boss, it’s Sharon Gaskarth, down in custody.’

  Sam didn’t really know the Custody Sergeant. Sharon had not long been promoted.

  ‘Hi Sharon. What can I do for you? I know we’ve made your morning a bit busier than normal.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ the Sergeant said, appreciating Sam’s words. ‘It’s Elliott Prince. He wants to speak to you and Ed Whelan, nobody else. Says he’ll tell you everything you need to know.’

  ‘You lot took your time,’ Prince said, already rising as the interview door opened.

  Ed pulled out a chair from underneath the table, its back legs screeching along the floor. ‘Sit back down.’

  Sam spoke in a quiet and measured voice. ‘You wanted to see us?’

  ‘You might find Glen’s blood on my trainers.’

  Sam pulled her chair closer to the desk. ‘Let me remind you that you
are still under caution. We need to put the tapes on.’

  Ed stretched out his legs, put his hands behind his neck, and looked up at the ceiling. Years ago it hadn’t mattered what colour they were painted, within months they were nicotine yellow.

  The red light went out and the recorder stopped beeping.

  ‘I am DCI Parker. Also present is... ’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Whelan.’

  ‘And... ’

  ‘Elliott Prince.’

  Sam cautioned him. ‘Do you wish a legal adviser present?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sgt Whelan and myself are here because you asked to see us, and us specifically. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when we entered the room, without any prompting from us, you said, we might find Glen’s blood on your trainers. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why might we find Glen’s blood on your trainers?’

  Elliott Prince’s eyes shot upwards and to the left, a sure sign of a liar according to body language experts, although they weren’t allowed to be experts in the Criminal Justice system of England and Wales, no more than polygraph tests were allowed. Body language could still prove a useful indicator to interviewing detectives, though.

  ‘I stood in his blood…’

  Neither Sam nor Ed responded but waited for Prince to carry on.

  ‘... on the tow path. When he was lying there.’

  ‘I think you’d better start at the beginning,’ Sam said. ‘Take your time.’

  Elliott Prince looked from Sam to Ed.

  ‘I was on the tow path. So was Glen. We wanted to catch the killer.’

  ‘What?’ Sam needed all her experience not to laugh.

  ‘That night I hid under a tree,’ Prince went on. ‘Glen walked past me, pretending to be drunk, like we knew Jack was the night he got killed.’

  The plan had been simple, Prince told them. Glen was the bait that would flush out the attacker and they would overpower him. Like avenging heroes, they would hand the killer to police.

  ‘But it all went wrong,’ Prince said.