Night of Fire: (DI Angus Henderson Book 6)

by Iain Cameron

  Henderson couldn’t park anywhere near Bramble Bank, the space outside the house occupied by Pat Davidson’s SOCO van and another van which he assumed had carried the team of diggers. He got out of the car and understood what Pat had said to him on the phone, it did feel colder here than in Brighton.

  SOCO teams tried to be tidy but on entering the house, he could see where they had been as carpets were ruffled after being pulled up, empty kit boxes littered the hallway and flat surfaces were coated with fingerprint dust. He walked into the lounge and spotted Pat Davidson standing outside talking to three burly coppers having a smoke and leaning on spades. By the jollity, the relaxed postures and the clean faces it was clear they hadn’t started work yet in the vegetable patch.

  Pat saw him, stubbed out his cigarette and opened the patio doors. ‘Morning Angus, how are you?’

  ‘Not too bad. I’ve just been to hospital to see Francis Quinlan, the guy we found lying in here injured.’

  ‘The man responsible for all the blood on the chair, I assume?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Alive and sounding like his old self.’

  ‘Good to hear. I get tired of dealing with dead bodies all the time, it’s heartening when somebody can walk away at the end of it.’

  ‘How’s it going here?’

  ‘We’ve done downstairs, now we’re doing up,’ he said, jerking a thumb towards the ceiling. ‘So far, we’ve found blood on the chair there, which is now accounted for, and blood on the carpet in the box room. Somebody’s tried to scrub it but off we’ve got a decent sample.’

  ‘Good. Did you find any information relating to her car?’

  ‘Afraid not. We’ve searched through all the books in here and a cupboard in the kitchen full of papers but nothing.’

  Henderson gazed through the window; the diggers had finished their smoke and were heading into the sun-kissed area at the end of the garden where the vegetable patch was located. As he watched, he tried to think of all the places where a fugitive might hide a document relating to a ‘secret’ car.

  ‘What about the shed? Has anyone looked in there?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Henderson said.

  ‘It might be dirty.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances; as I said on the phone, we need to wrap this up today. Catch you later.’

  In the kitchen drawer he found a number of keys all bearing a sticky label indicating what they were used for. It was the sensible thing to do in a rented house. In his house at College Place, he could tell by the shape and size what door a key opened, but this wouldn’t be much use to someone staying there for the first time.

  He opened the door of the shed and walked in. He didn’t believe Melanie Lewis would hide anything of value in here as she wouldn’t be able to access it quickly as she made her bid for freedom. Nevertheless, he went through the motions of opening seed boxes, sifting through a small pile of wood, checking inside tins, and looking through equipment and cartons lying on the shelves.

  He picked up a wipe-clean annual garden planner and began flicking through the pages. He liked the idea and decided to buy one if he saw something similar in the shops. He turned to put it back on the shelf when he heard someone knocking on the door.

  He pushed the door open and saw a member of the digging team standing there, his face harrowed with concern. ‘Sir, you need to come and see this.’

  He followed the man to the vegetable patch. One of the digging team, down on his knees in the mud, was using a small kitchen brush to sweep dirt away from an object. Henderson stood there mesmerised, like an archaeologist at a dig, wondering if they were about to uncover a valuable artefact from Roman times or a useless piece of rusted junk.

  Slowly, the hidden object began to reveal itself. Looking back at him now, he recognised the pale, dead face of Cindy Summer.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Henderson leaned back in the office chair and put his feet on the desk. On his face, a smile like a well-fed cat. DS Edwards had just left and while he wouldn’t say with her tail between her legs, that’s how it felt.

  The body in the vegetable patch turned out to be, as Henderson first suspected, Cindy Summer. He’d never met the girl before but being slightly odd-looking with long, straight black hair, a thin face and pointed nose, once seen in photographs given to them by Quinlan’s, never forgotten.

  Over the weekend, the bloodstain discovered on the carpet in the box room had been matched to the dead girl, as did the blood on the claw hammer found under the sink. He didn’t need to check if Melanie Lewis’s prints were on file, as inside Bramble Bank who else would leave their prints on bathroom taps or on the lamp in the bedroom?

  The three diggers and Pat Davidson’s SOCO team had proved beyond doubt that Melanie Lewis not only committed identity fraud and kidnapped Francis Quinlan, but she also murdered Cindy Summer. Edwards, to her credit, didn’t hesitate in acknowledging this change in events and apologised for her earlier outburst. He’d even received a call from the Assistant Chief Constable, Andy Youngman wishing him luck in finding the missing woman. If only he realised how difficult that task was going to be.

  He knew in his own mind that Lewis had been ready for this day and planned it well. Whether she got a kick out of pretending to be someone else, or did it to scam money from companies like Quinlan’s, and took pleasure in murdering people who came too close, he didn’t know, but she knew a time would come when she would have to disappear.

  She made it easy for herself by renting a house, keeping only enough possessions to pick up in one sweep of the wardrobe and by owning a car no one knew anything about. With this level of forward planning, it was inconceivable she didn’t have a destination in mind, and his priority now was to find it.

  He removed his size nines from the desk, picked up the phone and called the Crime Scene Manager, Pat Davidson. The embargo lifted by Edwards meant they could now examine the Bramble Bank house for as long as they wanted, but Pat and his team had finished on Saturday night as they’d done everything they needed to do.

  ‘Morning, Pat. Angus. Did you have a good weekend?’

  ‘I came into the office on Sunday morning for a couple of hours but didn’t leave until four. You know how it is.’

  ‘Sure do.’

  ‘I know what you did because I also saw your car in the Malling House car park.’

  ‘Guilty as charged. Well done for all the work you and your boys did at the house in Steyning. So much for you getting fed up dealing with murders.’

  ‘I spoke too soon.’

  ‘What’s your conclusion now after sifting through all her stuff?’

  ‘You say ‘all her stuff’ but there wasn’t much. She either had the removers in before we arrived or didn’t own much in the first place.’

  ‘The latter I suspect.’

  ‘Well, other than the blood-stained hammer we didn’t find anything else. We found a little hiding place beneath the floorboards in the main bedroom. It looked to be used but it was empty.’

  ‘You didn’t find car registration documents or official reminders?’

  ‘No, not even close. If you’re lucky, one might drop on her doormat in the next few days.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m never that lucky. Thanks for all your help Pat.’

  He pulled towards him a groaning pile of paperwork, double the size of only a week ago and set to work to try and reduce it. He worked solidly for a couple of hours and at the point where his stomach told him it must be time for lunch, DS Walters walked in. He looked up and looked again, as she resembled a character from Game of Thrones with a face devoid of colour and her nose an odd shade of red.

  ‘It’s bloody freezing out there. It’s a good job most garage salesmen conduct their meetings indoors and not standing in front of a line of cold metal; a body could seize up in this. Mind you, I’m practically climbing the walls with all the coffee I’ve drunk to keep warm, just to be polite, o
f course.’

  She took off her coat and sat down. ‘Don’t you hate modern offices with their concealed heating systems? I used to love it at school in the winter when you came in from the playground and could stick your cold mitts through the bars of the hot radiator.’

  ‘We had them at our school too. How did you get on with the garages?’

  She shook her head. ‘No sightings of our missing woman. We had a guy at a dealership in Billingshurst who said he remembered selling a car to her but when we asked him to provide a fuller description, he said his buyer was small and fat.’

  ‘It was always going to be a long shot as we don’t know how long she’s owned the car or if she brought it down with her from Norfolk. Wait a sec...’

  ‘Park it. It’s already been done. I called Quinlan’s and the HR woman said when Lewis moved to Brighton she owned a car, but sold it when she received a company vehicle. Before you ask, her old car is now up north, the pride and joy of a woman in Manchester.’

  ‘Excellent work, but I fear another dead end.’

  ‘How did you get on with distributing her photograph?’

  ‘A poster with: Have You Seen This Woman? is out there on police billboards. I could only get it into a few local papers as according to the Press Office, none of the nationals were interested.’

  ‘Pity. So, what do we do now, sit around and twiddle our thumbs and wait for someone to ID Melanie Lewis?’

  ‘Can you think of anything else?’

  ‘We’re running out of time, boss, if you want the Marc Emerson case done and dusted before the end of the year.’

  ‘I know you shouldn’t put a time limit on these things but…hang on. You said Marc Emerson. It’s just given me an idea.’ He looked at her but it didn’t elicit a response.

  ‘I’m guessing from your blank face this isn’t something you’ve done already.’

  ‘If you tell me what it is, I might have a better idea but we’ve done nothing relating to Marc Emerson in the last few days.’

  ‘I’ll tell you while we walk. Come with me.’

  Fifteen minutes later both detectives took a seat in the archive room, three boxes of Marc Emerson’s personal effects sitting in front of them. For the moment, he ignored the boxes containing equipment such as the laptop, camera, books, and concentrated on the paperwork.

  ‘Tell me again,’ Walters said, ‘why would Marc Emerson have Melanie Lewis’s car registration document?’

  ‘I’m not saying he would have it but don’t forget, they were once lovers. They might have gone out in her car for the day and he sent her an email or text talking about it, or we might find an invoice or correspondence with a garage because he took it in for a service.’

  ‘There are long shots and there are long shots, Detective Inspector Henderson, but this one is way out there in the wild blue yonder.’

  ‘More searching and less bleating. Remember, we’re looking for something that will tell us something about her car or the address of her bolthole or holiday home. Ok?’

  Henderson was gung-ho at adding another thread to the search but as always, his enthusiasm waned when dealing with the personal possessions of a murder victim. All the things they collected: stamps, mugs or coins, all the things they owned: phones, houses and cars, and all the things they strived for in their lives: in their place of work, love life or hobbies, counted for nothing when it ended up in here.

  Henderson sifted through papers, letters and unopened mail with a heavy heart. He picked up a small photograph album, a rarity nowadays with the ubiquity of digital cameras and the storing of photographs on computers.

  If wading through a dead man’s personal effects presented difficulties, looking at their photographs could be far worse. Here was Marc alive and smiling lovingly at the woman who could be responsible for his murder, and she looking back at him with equal passion. Did something happen to make their love turn sour, or is hate a fire burning in Melanie Lewis’s heart, like a pilot light, ready to explode into life when something displeased her?

  He’d seen pictures of Marc before but never appreciated how handsome he looked. On holiday, with a tan and wearing a t-shirt, shorts, sunglasses and a few days’ stubble, he could pass for a male model. The pictures in Tenerife gave way to a British scene, he guessed the New Forest. His heart skipped a beat when he noticed the car he was leaning against wasn’t Marc’s BMW or her VW Passat.

  He held his breath as he turned to the next picture. In this one, Melanie was getting into her car, a dark blue Vauxhall Astra. Marc had taken the shot from the front and there it was, a clear view of the car’s registration plate.

  FORTY

  Henderson guided the car off the M40 motorway and drove towards Oxford Services. He travelled down one long slip road, and then around a roundabout and then around another.

  ‘If I’d remembered these services were such a faff to reach, I might have waited until the next one.’

  ‘You’ve been driving long enough, you need a break and some food inside you,’ Walters beside him said. ‘I know I do.’

  He smiled as he guided the pool car into a parking space. ‘Food and you are close companions.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m fat?’

  ‘Would I be so reckless? No, I’m saying we all have different priorities in life and while I enjoy food, I don’t think about it all day. Now, a nice glass of whisky, that would sail my boat.’

  ‘You can keep your whisky,’ she said as she got out of the car and stretched. ‘I’m looking forward to a burger and chips.’

  Walters did indeed help herself to a burger and chips, why not while on expenses, and he opted for something lighter, a chicken salad. He didn’t mind a good feed now and again and her burger did smell good, but when faced with another hour or two sitting in a car, the last thing he wanted was a pile of stodge inside him.

  They took a table beside the window overlooking the car park and sat down. Henderson liked motorway service stations; the noise, the smells, seeing a good cross-section of the British public moving in and out. There, he would see things he didn’t see in the street or at an airport such as a group of disabled kids out for a day at a theme park, a university hockey team en route to Holland to participate in a tournament and tense looking businessmen heading out to difficult meetings.

  With his copper hat on, it could be a good place to meet narks and witnesses as watchers found it hard to pick them out in this constantly moving sea of humanity. Criminals liked them too as it was busy with people and cameras so no one could make a move on them, and it was a better place for a meeting with rivals than in the stronghold of someone else’s pub.

  ‘My, this is good,’ Walters said, tucking into her burger. ‘You’re missing out.’

  ‘I know but my stomach will be grateful later.’

  ‘How far do we have to go?’

  ‘An hour, maybe two depending on traffic. We first need to get into Gloucester, find the police station and talk to the armed response team. Only then can we drive out to the village where our woman is staying.’

  ‘If she’s still there.’

  ‘The locals did a drive-past this morning. The car’s still there and you checked with the DVLA, it hasn’t been sold.’

  ‘I did, but what if she’s dumped it?’

  ‘In someone’s driveway? Why would she?’

  ‘If she thought we were after her.’

  ‘As I said before, she didn’t deliberately leave a clue in Marc’s photo album for us to find so we could participate in some kind of weird cross-country chasing game. I doubt if she even remembers Marc taking the picture.’

  ‘Ok, but what if the memory comes back to her now?’

  ‘Why would it, and why now? If the idea came to her earlier, say around the time Marc was murdered, surely she would have got rid of the car then?’

  ‘Maybe she did and some time tonight we’re about to kick the door in on some retired gentleman with a dickey ticker.’

  ‘You do have a v
ivid imagination, Sergeant, but I don’t agree. I’m convinced she’s there.’

  Walters knew all about the CCTV analysis done by the team and was playing Devil’s Advocate, looking for chinks in their armour. When they discovered the make, model and registration number of Lewis’s car, Henderson set a team working on analysing CCTV pictures. They knew within a limited time frame when she departed Steyning and sure enough, the car was spotted travelling north on the M23. They tracked her around the M25 and along the M40, following the same route the two detectives were doing now. To dispel any doubt in the minds of the coppers they were about to see, in his briefcase he had a CCTV snapshot of the front of her car. It contained a single occupant, Melanie Lewis.

  They couldn’t track her final destination as CCTV cameras didn’t cover the rural area where she was heading, but sometime later an on-board ANPR system had pinged inside a patrol car. The officers took no action to pull the car over, as Henderson requested, but instead followed the target to her new home and called Sussex detectives.

  ‘I feel better now,’ Walters said, sitting back.

  ‘A clean plate, I’m impressed. I’m not sure I could have finished it.’

  She reached for her coffee, no doubt lukewarm like his, but she seemed to enjoy it all the same.

  ‘I hate cold coffee but I need the caffeine kick to be alert on the road. Can’t have me being pulled over for inattentive or careless driving.’

  The meal complete, they sat around for another five minutes watching their fellow travellers. Following a quick detour to the toilets, they walked back to the car. They departed the service station, Walters now in the driving seat, but didn’t re-join the motorway as it wound its way north to Birmingham, and instead took the A40 which by-passed Oxford before heading west towards Cheltenham and Gloucester. The road soon reduced from a dual to a single carriageway and after being stuck behind a succession of slow-moving lorries, Henderson was glad he had bought a newspaper at the service station.