The Rules of Murder

by The Rules of Murder (epub)

‘Yes. It’s possible.’

  Dani’s mind brimming with thoughts and half-baked theories, she and Easton were soon heading on foot back from Collins’s office to HQ.

  ‘Where are you going with this?’ Easton said as they strolled along Colmore Row, past St Philips Cathedral. A cluster of pigeons shot up from the grass beyond the fence and Dani, still on edge, jumped at the sudden noise of dozens of flapping wings.

  ‘Maybe I’m reaching here, but what if that voice is the answer?’ she said.

  ‘To Curtis killing?’

  ‘He wasn’t a killer before, he—’

  ‘Actually, according to your brother, he was a killer before he went to jail.’

  A fair point actually, and they really needed to get to the bottom of Ben’s claims.

  ‘Yet the man who came out of prison is still a different, more violent beast to the one that went in,’ Dani said. ‘What if it wasn’t prison that changed Curtis, but someone?’

  ‘Collins? You think she introduced that voice into his head? Is that where you’re going with this? Why the hell would she do that?’

  ‘Which is exactly what we need to find out.’

  * * *

  Once back in the office, Dani first called to update McNair on both the morning meeting with Ben, and the subsequent meeting at Collins’s office. Thoughts tumbling in her head, she and Easton were soon headed to the newly set-up project room to brief the team and catch up on progress. Easton was left to delve into the forensics findings, while Dani sought out Grayling and Constable who were sitting next to one another in the far corner.

  ‘I need you to take a look in HOLMES for any files relating to Curtis’s manslaughter case,’ Dani said to Grayling.

  ‘You have those already, don’t you?’

  ‘I think so, but can you double-check, make sure there’s nothing we’ve not picked up? Maybe there’s something that’s been misfiled, so set up a keyword search.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Very possibly.’

  Dani briefly explained what Ben had said about Curtis, and the need to figure out as much as they could about the circumstances of the crash that he’d been jailed for. She also explained about the meeting with Collins, the voices in Curtis’s head. Easton headed over to join in.

  ‘One major issue I still have is how the Redfearnes became involved here,’ Dani said. ‘Curtis is out for revenge: that makes some sense, but Oscar had nothing to do with Curtis or the trial from what we can see.’

  ‘Nor does anyone else have anything to gain from Curtis’s killing spree,’ Easton said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were suggesting someone put that voice in his head to cause him to change into this deranged killer, that it might even have been Collins who did that. But what’s the motive? What does she, or anyone else gain from these deaths?’

  Which was a great question. And one that Dani had no answer to at all.

  ‘We’ll search through everything to find the answer,’ she said. ‘We have access to the Redfearnes’ records now, so we need to identify any reference to Curtis or Collins, however small or seemingly insignificant.’

  Easton didn’t seem satisfied, but Dani turned away and moved over to Constable, who remained neck-deep in CCTV searches, his task widening exponentially each time Curtis struck.

  ‘What have you got?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Plenty of images that could be Curtis at various points,’ he said, ‘though I’m not altogether sure what to do with it all.’

  He flicked around various windows for a few seconds.

  ‘So in Winson Green,’ he said, ‘I’ve managed to track the moments around when Sophie escaped. We can see her coming onto Butler Street here.’

  Dani watched the jumpy image as the young woman, grimy and jittery, came into view, shuffling along the street, looking nervously over her shoulder every other step.

  ‘And we have her from this angle too,’ Constable said, switching to another view showing Sophie from the back. ‘I’ve been going out from this time bit by bit, both before and after, to see if I can pick out Curtis. I’ve not yet come across him prior to Sophie’s escape, but then I found this.’

  He scrambled around for a few more seconds before opening another file. He hit play. It was the same camera as before, which had showed Sophie’s back.

  ‘This was about twenty minutes after Sophie was found. She’d already been taken to hospital by this point, and the police first responders were still on the scene.’

  Dani stared at the screen. The marked police car in the near distance, outside the grocery store, was clear enough. She glanced down to the timestamp. She and Easton hadn’t arrived until sometime after, not until Sophie had been identified and the alert passed to them.

  ‘Across the other side of the road, there,’ Constable said, pointing to a dark figure on the screen.

  Dani kept her eyes on the figure. Wearing dark jeans, a black T-shirt and with a baseball cap pulled over his head, he was pretty innocuous and certainly not easily identifiable.

  ‘You can see him glancing at the police car a couple of times. Then when he’s past it he crosses the street…’ Constable hit pause. ‘This is about the best shot we’ve got of his face.’

  Was it Curtis? Dani didn’t really know.

  ‘Then if we move to the next camera, we see him heading down Malvern Road towards the warehouse, the same way Sophie had come from.’

  Dani shook her head.

  ‘He walked right past the police,’ Dani said.

  ‘He may not even have had an idea at that point why they were there.’

  ‘We were only minutes away from getting him.’

  If Sophie had been identified by the first responders sooner would it have made a difference?

  ‘Can you trace where he came from?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. There are too many dark spots once you get past the shops.’

  Dani supposed it was an interesting enough find, further evidence pinning Curtis to a crime scene, but it really didn’t help much in actually tracking him down.

  ‘But,’ Constable said. He typed away, opening and closing windows. ‘On your street…’

  Dani gulped as images of Friday night flashed in her mind.

  ‘I’ve done a lot of work trying to trace his movements after he dumped that stolen car, and I’m pretty sure this is him.’

  Dani’s eyes narrowed as she focussed on the figure now on the screen. The clothes didn’t quite match. Curtis had been in jeans and T-shirt in her house, but this figure had a jacket and a cap on. But the size and shape certainly fitted.

  ‘Where is that?’ Dani said.

  ‘Argyle Road.’

  Dani had thought so, but that meant… ‘He’s coming up the hill towards Ivy Road.’ She glanced down to the timestamp again. This was over an hour after he’d scarpered from her house.

  ‘I know,’ Constable said. ‘And I lose him soon after, and there aren’t any cameras on your street, but it looks like—’

  ‘He was returning to the scene.’ But why? Then she got it. ‘He had a vehicle?’

  ‘I reckon so, yeah. And I’ve done a bit of digging, and don’t ask me how I got here, because I really don’t know, but I’ve managed to tie the same van, on different occasions, either in Harborne, near your street, or in Winson Green, near that warehouse.’

  Constable brought up another file, scrolled through the video and hit pause. A blue Ford Transit van, facing towards a camera. The driver’s head was obscured by the glare on the windscreen, but the number plate was clear enough.

  ‘Do you have any clearer than that?’

  ‘Not really. But it’s either a big coincidence, or I think this van could be him.’

  ‘You’ve run the registration?’

  ‘It’s a fake. Not registered.’

  ‘Shit.’ That really didn’t get them anywhere, other than perhaps adding weight to this being Curtis.

  ‘How many blue Ford Transit
vans in this city?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Hundreds probably. Thousands even. What do you want to do?’

  Dani thought for a few seconds. She knew one thing. They couldn’t take risks now. ‘Get an alert out for that reg. As wide as you can. And after that keep digging. Trace that van’s movements as much as you can from what you have access to. If you map out its most common routes, we should be able to narrow down where it’s coming from, and where Curtis is at. At the very least it should point us to the right area.

  Dani’s thoughts turned back to her meeting with Ben, and what he’d said about the crash. Why had Curtis never mentioned in his police interviews that there was another car that night? And why had whoever had been in that car never come forward as a witness?

  She had a thought and turned back to Grayling.

  ‘The road the crash happened on… Clement Hill, right?’ Grayling nodded. Dani turned back to Constable. ‘Are there cameras on Clement Hill?’

  ‘Give me a second.’

  Constable took more than a second, but he was still pretty damn quick.

  ‘No. Never been any. But there is a tower on Shortland, not far from the junction with Clement.’

  ‘How long’s it been there for?’

  ‘No idea. Not all the records are readily accessible.’

  ‘OK, then please find out. Try and pinpoint Curtis’s car that night, the Corsa I mean, and any other vehicles that were in the area immediately after, heading away from Clement Hill.’

  ‘But what exactly is it you’re looking for?’ Grayling asked.

  ‘The ones who got away. And very possibly the whole reason why Damian Curtis is now out for revenge.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  The house in Rugeley, Staffordshire was large and modern and bland, much like all of those on the small estate of new-builds. Dani wasn’t massively familiar with the area, though judging by the deluge of BMWs and Mercedes and Audis parked outside the houses, it was distinctly middle-class. She pulled up behind the police patrol car that was sitting outside number twelve, and was about to get out when her phone rang. It was Constable.

  ‘You found something?’ Dani said hopefully.

  ‘You were right. There was another car.’

  ‘You got it on CCTV?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s no other explanation. At the least, it had to have passed by the crash site, certainly before any police or paramedics were there. The timing works exactly.’

  ‘Was the registration visible?’

  ‘It was, and I’ve already run it.’

  ‘And?’

  Constable gave the name. Just as Dani had suspected. Finally much of the case was making a little more sense. Which was good, because it was confirmation that her decision to split up and send Easton off in the opposite direction was the right call.

  Dani thanked Constable and asked him to continue digging before she ended the call and stepped out of her car. She had a brief chat with the police officer sitting in the car in front, who looked and sounded bored silly, before she headed up the short drive to the house. Three minutes later she was seated in the bright yet sparse open-plan kitchen-diner at the back of Oliver Waite’s house, waiting for her machine coffee.

  ‘I feel like a prisoner in here,’ Waite said as the fancy-looking contraption on the sleek countertop gurgled away, steam rising up from the spout.

  ‘The sooner we catch Curtis, the sooner your life can return to normal. And I don’t think anyone said you can’t leave.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t, but what would you do in my position? Would you want to be out there while that madman is on the rampage?’

  ‘Technically, that’s exactly what I’m doing,’ Dani said. ‘And I don’t want to alarm you further, but actually all of Curtis’s victims so far have been attacked in and around their homes. Perhaps outside is safer after all.’

  Waite shot Dani a look which was somewhere between fear and animosity. The machine finally stopped, and Waite grabbed the mug and splashed a little milk in before he headed over. Dressed in jeans and a baggy hoodie that did little to hide his obvious flabby bulk, Waite was unshaven with messy hair. Dani could scarcely believe this man was an experienced defence lawyer. She was sure she’d seen him before down at the courts in Birmingham; she’d certainly recognised his name at least, but seeing him today he was nothing like the man she’d expected.

  ‘Your wife isn’t home then?’ Dani said, glancing to a picture of a blonde woman caked in thick make-up. Waite took a seat at the opposite side of the glass dining table to Dani.

  ‘She doesn’t live here any more,’ he said. He didn’t expand on that and Dani wasn’t going to pry. Perhaps their divorce or separation or whatever it was partly explained Waite’s new look.

  ‘So what can I do for you, DI Stephens?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about Damian Curtis.’

  ‘I kind of gathered that.’

  ‘You headed up his legal team.’

  ‘I was assigned his case. He couldn’t afford to pay for his own lawyer. I’m sure you understand how Legal Aid works.’

  ‘So you’re intimately familiar with his case and trial?’

  Waite looked unsure about that question. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘One thing I struggle to understand is what happened?’

  ‘What happened how?’

  ‘With his case. I mean, looking back now, what you knew, the evidence you had from Dr Collins as to Curtis’s mental health issues, why on earth did you settle for a voluntary manslaughter conviction?’

  Waite looked agitated already, as though he felt Dani was challenging his professionalism. Which, in a way, she was.

  ‘I think you’re mischaracterising both how legal representation works, and also how a murder trial works.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Given the events leading up to that crash, the arguments he and his girlfriend had, the fact he was high on booze and drugs, Damian Curtis was charged with murder. That was nothing to do with me. You’d have to speak to the CPS about that, but it was quite clear to me that what happened that night was nothing but a tragic accident. He never intended them dead.’

  ‘Is this you speaking in a personal capacity or as an advocate for Damian Curtis?’

  ‘It’s just me speaking. Curtis was entitled to representation, same as anyone else. I did what I felt was the best job I could for my client, backed up by a very respectable barrister.’

  ‘Kenneth Feathers. Who’s now dead.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, Detective.’

  ‘And our theory, which is unfortunately playing out more times than we’d wish, is that Curtis is on some sort of mission of revenge. Which would itself suggest that perhaps Curtis doesn’t quite agree that whatever you and Feathers and others did for him was the best job. From his perspective at least.’

  ‘God knows what’s going through his mind, but I honestly have no idea why he feels in any way compelled to try and punish Feathers, or me or anyone else who was trying to help him.’

  ‘But why did you settle? You said yourself you didn’t think he tried to kill them. So why not go for death by dangerous driving? Why not involuntary manslaughter, or voluntary manslaughter through diminished responsibility and have him in a hospital, where perhaps you’ll agree now is where he belongs?’

  Waite glared at Dani as she took a casual sip from her mug. It was a damn good coffee actually.

  ‘I get the sense you’re trying to get under my skin,’ Waite said. ‘Though I don’t really know why.’

  ‘Why? Because we have a man on the loose who is mentally deranged, who’s killed multiple people in just a few days—’

  ‘Allegedly.’

  ‘Allegedly? Are you serious?’

  ‘He’s not been brought to trial for these crimes, has he? You might be happy to jump to a conclusion but it’s not something I ever do.’

  ‘OK, whatever. I’ve jumped. He’s a murderer. He tried to kill me.’ Waite squirmed a little at
that. Had he not known? ‘And I have to ask myself, why on earth was this man back on the streets?’

  ‘Which again is not a question for me. That’s a question for the parole board.’

  ‘Except you were the one who put his case forward to the board.’

  ‘I represented my client.’

  ‘And look where that’s got us.’

  ‘If you’re trying to suggest—’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to understand why a man was convicted of voluntary manslaughter through loss of control when the evidence of his own legal team showed he was clearly mentally unstable.’

  Waite sat back and let out a long sigh.

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here,’ he said.

  ‘I think you do. I think you just don’t like how your actions have come back to bite you.’

  He gritted his teeth. Dani could tell by the small pulse in his jaw.

  ‘My client was facing a charge of murder,’ Waite said. ‘He didn’t deserve that. Given the circumstances, it was a trumped-up charge, but the CPS were gunning for Curtis from the start, and I really don’t know why.’

  ‘Perhaps because he killed two people.’

  ‘It was a road traffic accident. How many times are you aware of where the CPS has charged for murder after a road traffic accident?’

  Dani didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure Waite really cared to know.

  ‘The CPS set their stall out, and we had to pull them down,’ Waite said. ‘There was no denying that Curtis was present that night, so we couldn’t move to acquit. I apologise if you know all this, but it seems like I need to set it straight for you. There are partial and complete defences to murder. An example of a complete defence would be self-defence, but that clearly wasn’t applicable here. Diminished responsibility, on the other hand, is only a partial defence for murder, as is loss of control, and both lead to a sentence for voluntary manslaughter. The former refers to a defendant’s underlying mental state, if you like, the latter to a moment in time when they… lost it.’ Waite shrugged at his own apparent lack of eloquence. ‘A severe provocation from a partner, for example, could be deemed loss of control based on the particular circumstances.’