by Michael Kerr
“That sounds like a motive to get rid of Dominic,” Pete said. “But why the two presenters? They just read their script off a teleprompter.”
“Not quite, Pete. They both had more input. A lot of the lead investigations on the show were done by them, and especially by Danielle.”
“So when do we go and ruin Brent-Soames’ day?”
“I phoned his office. His secretary says that he’s in Paris attending some conference, and that he’s due back on Friday evening.”
“So with any luck he knew that he could’ve been the next big story on City Crime, and paid some guy to get rid of the three people that he considered to be a threat?”
“It’s a lead, Pete. I think it’ll be a blind alley, but who knows. I still believe that it’s more personal, and that Danielle Cooper was the primary target.”
It was seven-fifty a.m. when he sat down on the bench at the side of the towpath, after first wiping the film of morning dew from the green-painted wood slats. He tied Rascal’s lead to one of the ornate rolled cast iron arms of the bench, and then sat with his right hand in the pocket of his car coat, holding the gun, waiting for Dewey Marvin to arrive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE slowed to a walk as he reached the footbridge, due to the wet surface of the planks, and paused halfway across as something small and colourful appeared a few yards downstream and alighted on a thin, bare branch that curved out over the edge of the canal. It was a kingfisher. He remained motionless and waited, and within a few seconds the bird darted down to vanish beneath the surface, to reappear and fly back up to the branch with a small fish gripped in its dagger-like beak. Whipping its head from side to side, the kingfisher beat the writhing minnow to unconsciousness or death, before carefully aligning it in its bill to swallow head first.
Dewey smiled. Beauty and brutality were two of life’s major components. The food chain was the driving force that sustained all creatures. Existence depended on nourishment, and so the dominion of nature provided a balance of predators and prey.
Walking on, he reached the other side of the bridge and began to jog along his usual route, to reach the first long bend and see the indistinct figure up ahead, sitting on a bench with a dog sat on the ground next to him.
He took deep breaths and readied himself as he drew the gun and held it down by the side of his right hip, out of sight of the approaching jogger. Within seconds Dewey Marvin was only twenty yards away and closing fast. He got to his feet and pointed the gun at him, and the big man stopped to stare at him with coal black eyes that showed no sign of fear or surprise.
“You have a choice,” he said to Dewey. “Walk along the trail that leads from behind this bench to the road, or be shot where you stand.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Dewey asked. “You don’t look like the kind of guy that goes around threatening to kill people. Are you some kind of modern-day highwayman, waylaying folk to rob them? Because I’m not carrying a wallet. All I’ve got is my wristwatch and mobile phone.”
“Shut up and move,” he said.
Dewey smiled. “I don’t think so. If you pull that trigger you’ll do life. This part of the canal is covered by CCTV. There’s a camera almost facing you on the wall of the old factory opposite.”
The gunman glanced across the canal, and in the instant that he did, Dewey dived sideways into the shrubbery that crowded the towpath, to roll through it and slam into the trunk of a lofty beech. Pain blossomed in his shoulder, but he ignored it and climbed to his feet and zigzagged through the trees, bent low and running fast, positive that the man would be unable to find him. He had appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, not young or fit enough to run him down. He would have to somehow find out who the bastard was. Maybe he could stay close by, hidden among the foliage to wait and watch where the man went.
Rascal barked and strained against the leash, almost choking himself in an attempt to break free, and so he unclipped the leather leash from the collar and said, “Find, boy. Go get him.”
The dog streaked into the band of trees, his sense of smell and keen hearing picking up the fleeing presence ahead of him.
Following in the wake of the dog, pistol held firmly in his hand, he walked carefully through the trees, across the damp leaf litter that he knew would conceal thick roots and pitfalls. This was not the time to trip and break a leg or hip or ankle.
Rascal saw the moving figure and growled as he narrowed the gap between them.
Dewey heard the dog as he broke through the screen of trees and attempted to run up the grassy slope to the narrow country road ahead of him. To his left he saw a small car; a Golf, and was certain that it would belong to the stranger that had for some reason threatened him. He memorised the plate number, and then his left foot slipped on the wet grass and he fell backwards, to slide down and become entangled in a bush covered in thorns, which scratched his face and hooked into his sweat top. He jerked free, ripping his cheek open and tearing the material of his top as he sat up and attempted to climb back to his feet, only to be knocked back off balance as the dog leaped at him, to bite him on the wrist, sinking its teeth through flesh to the bones beneath. He gasped at the pain, but did not panic, just reached out with his free hand, picked up a two-foot long piece of branch from among the detritus and struck Rascal across the side of the head with it once, twice, three times, until the dog slumped over dazed and whining.
He heard Rascal’s plaintive cries and followed the sound, to find his beloved dog on its side with blood oozing from head wounds. He ran on, up to the roadside, and saw Marvin angling across the asphalt over twenty yards away, so raised the pistol and loosed off three shots before his quarry vanished from sight. Hesitating, he accepted that his attempt to abduct the gangster had gone badly wrong. It would be foolish to chase him any further. The element of surprise that he’d had on the towpath had been lost. He needed to get Rascal to the car and head for home.
Dewey jogged along a winding path that had been forged by the passage of walkers and cyclists. It was a little muddy, but easier to follow than leaving it to perhaps lose his bearings in among the trees. A few minutes later he was back on the road, over half a mile from where he had left the dog. He had been lucky. The guy had not been a pro. And the three soft blats of bullets leaving a silencer had not resulted in him being hit. He had managed to run far enough to make it almost impossible for a handgun to be effective against a moving target at that range. Making his way back to the footbridge, he kept repeating the Golf’s plate number under his breath. He not only wanted to torture and kill the stranger that had targeted him, but needed to know why he had, and who had taken out the contract on him.
He put the gun in his pocket, but with the silencer fitted to it the weapon was too long and fell out onto the ground. Stooping, he picked it up, unscrewed the silencer and thrust it and the gun back in the pocket of his car coat.
Relief flooded through him as he saw Rascal get to his feet, to stand unsteadily with blood dripping down the side of his head.
He used the car key fob to unlock the doors, then lifted Rascal up in his arms and carried him to the Golf, to lay him on the rear seat, unmindful of the dirt and blood that would undoubtedly stain the upholstery. He drove back to Romford, parked at the rear of the local veterinary surgery, and carried Rascal inside. He told the vet, Keith Ratcliff, that Rascal had gone missing while off the lead in a disused railway cutting, which was now a popular place for walkers and joggers by day, and afforded privacy for couples to make out through the hours’ of darkness.
“It was about twenty minutes later that he staggered out from the bushes on the embankment,” he said to the vet. “God knows how he got those injuries. I didn’t see anyone in the area.”
“I’ll keep him overnight,” Keith said. “He needs a few stitches in one of the lacerations, and although he seems okay apart from that, he may have a mild concussion, so an x-ray would be prudent.”
“Whatever you think,” he said. “
I’ll phone in the morning to see how he is.”
Back home, he showered, dressed in clean clothes and made a pot of tea. He was in a black mood. Dewey Marvin had escaped, and it was completely his own fault. The man had been standing at point blank range, and yet distracted him for the second he’d needed to make his escape. Thank God that Marvin had dived in the bushes and not attempted to attack him. Had the tall, powerful man wrestled the gun from him, then he would in all probability be dead now.
He cleaned Rascal’s food and water bowls out and put them on the bottom shelf of a unit, and decided to wash the duvet that his dog slept on.
Half an hour later he was in his workshop, lightly marking a centreline on the seat, or body, to make it easy to place the head in the correct position. He then test-fitted the wood horse head to ensure that it sat squarely on the seat, before drilling holes and applying glue to the base of the neck and the round-ended dowels, that he hammered up through pre-drilled holes in the seat to secure the two pieces firmly together. The slight protrusion of the dowels could be sanded smooth when the glue was dry. And as he worked he let different scenarios of how to make another attempt to abduct Dewey Marvin run through his mind. The gangster would now be on guard, but would hopefully believe that it had been an attempted mugging. He had no reason to think that he was on a death list: that a vigilante had selected him to kill for all the suffering he had caused while pursuing his illegal activities.
He decided to put Marvin on hold. Give him time to put the day’s events behind him and relax. There was no hurry. He would just move on to the next target.
He used clear German-made glass eyes that were produced in the main for teddy bears, and he applied acrylic paint to the backs of them, to give the eyes the colour he required. All of his rocking horses were individual and original. No two were the same. Using more of the glue, he coated the sturdy wires that protruded from the rear of each eye, and also to the smooth wood sockets that he set them into. The holes he had drilled were a snug fit for the wires, and after checking the alignment of the eyes he taped them in place.
The work had calmed him. Back in the kitchen he washed his hands and fixed himself a light meal, just scrambled eggs.
As he ate, he planned to abduct a young man that had served a too short sentence for causing unlawful death. He had stabbed a retired teacher while burgling his home, but pleaded not guilty to murder, claiming that the elderly man had attacked him with the knife, and that during the following struggle the now deceased man had somehow fallen on the blade. The jury had bought his lie and given him the benefit of doubt that he had not committed a premeditated act of murder. But that was not good enough. The killer, Ian Peterson, had served three years in prison, but was now free. He had broken into the pensioner’s house to rob it, and had then intentionally or not, killed the man, and so he would suffer the same fate as the others. He had not gone to ground, but instead had returned to the terrace house in Dalston where he had lived with his girlfriend before serving his time in prison. It was now time for him to pay a proper price for his actions.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CYRIL Brent-Soames was picked up at Heathrow by his wife, Fiona, at eight p.m. on Friday evening. His trip to Paris had been part business, part pleasure. The small trade meetings he had attended over three days had been boring but quite rewarding. And the evenings had been outstanding. One had been with fellow delegates at the Moulin Rouge, enjoying a fine dinner show. And the final evening had been spent in his hotel room with a high-class prostitute. Life was fine like vintage wine. He was self-indulgent, and happy to be so. That his constituents and the muppets that rented his houses and flats were suffering austerity that seemed to be never-ending, was not his concern. The truth was, he didn’t give a damn about the general population that he considered as being the great unwashed rabble of lower classes, for which he had absolutely no empathy or time for whatsoever.
Fiona thumbed the button on the fob to open the large, electrically-operated double gates, slowing the BMW as they parted to allow entry.
As she drove through and pressed the button to close them, headlights came into view, dazzling her in the rear-view mirror, and a car followed them in fast, before the gates had time to shut.
Parking in front of the detached Georgian house, which stood in two acres of immaculately managed gardens, Cyril got out of the car and told Fiona to stay where she was.
Matt stopped a couple of yards in front of the man, and he and Pete climbed out of the Mondeo and approached him.
“Who the hell are you?” Cyril asked them.
“I’m Detective Inspector Barnes, and my colleague is Detective Sergeant Deakin,” Matt said, showing the man his ID. “We’re from the Special Crimes Unit at Scotland Yard.”
“I don’t care if you’re from Mars. But I suggest you go back there now. You have just trespassed on my property,” Cyril said in a loud voice.
“The gates were open, sir” Matt said. “We need to talk to you.”
“Listen, Barnes, I don’t do impromptu interviews. Leave at once, and phone for an appointment, or I’ll make a call and see if I can arrange for you to be put back in uniform, or at least be reprimanded.”
“You have a choice,” Matt said, his voice now monotone, all business. “Ask us in and answer a few questions, or be handcuffed and spend a night in the cells.”
Cyril attempted to stare Matt out, but failed. He had no intention of being arrested and taken in for questioning about anything. His mind raced. This had to be connected to his property deals or tax avoidance. He wasn’t unduly worried, because there was no paper trail or anything in any computer to link him to any wrongdoing.
“Very well,” he said. “No need for this not to be conducted in a civilised manner. Please come in and ask your questions.”
Fiona said nothing as she led Matt and Pete into the house and intimated with a hand gesture that they should go into a reception room on the left of the large hallway. She didn’t offer them a drink, just turned on her heel and headed for the wide stairs to the first floor of what to Pete seemed like a mansion.
“I’ll be ten minutes,” Cyril said. “As I’m sure you know I’ve just flown in from Paris. I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
“What do you think?” Matt said as they looked around the spacious room.
“That he’s a pompous prick,” Pete said. “The Oxbridge type that has never done a proper day’s work in his fucking life.”
“I meant as a suspect.”
“He appears to have enough money to have paid someone to do away with the three victims. But he’ll have cast-iron alibis for when they were murdered. He doesn’t look anything like the guy we saw on the CCTV footage, so I don’t believe we’ll leave here with anything more than we came in with.”
Cyril entered the room looking casually elegant. He was wearing a plum-coloured short-sleeved shirt with a collar, cream slacks with a knife crease, and a pair of burgundy leather moccasins, but no socks.
“Please, take a seat,” Cyril said. “Would you like a drink? I propose to have a large malt whisky.”
Matt and Pete declined, though Matt would have loved to have said yes. It was a while since he’d had anything better than blended Scotch or supermarket brandy.
“So what exactly is it that you think I may be able to shed some light on?” Cyril said as he walked across the room to a corner bar, placed a few ice cubes in a hand cut lead crystal tumbler and poured a large amount of eighteen year old Glenmorangie over them.
“Murder,” Matt said with no preamble.
Cyril almost choked on his first sip of the single malt. He coughed and then said, “You think that I’m in some way connected to a murder?”
“Three,” Pete said. “That’s the running total to date.”
“You’re both fucking insane,” Cyril said. “I haven’t murdered anyone.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Matt said. “But you could have paid someone else to.”
> “I’m a member of parliament, not a bloody killer, or the type of scum that would arrange for anyone to be murdered.”
“You are what we term a person of interest,” Matt said. “A suspect. A man that had motive.”
“Exactly who the hell do you think I would have reason to do away with,” Cyril said before draining his glass and returning to the bar to pour another.
“Dominic Wilson for one,” Matt said. “He worked for New Segue Studios as a researcher on the City Crime TV show.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Cyril said. “What possible link does he have to me?”
“He was investigating your business interests,” Pete said. “He had a lot of information that if he could back up with hard evidence would ruin your career and more than likely lead to criminal charges.”
“I daresay he dug the dirt on a lot of people. And as I said, I didn’t know him, so obviously had no idea that he was wasting his time prying into my life. I can assure you that he wouldn’t have found any proof of wrongdoing on my part. You said three murders. Who else do you suspect me of having killed?”