A Passion To Kill (DI Matt Barnes Book 5)

by Michael Kerr

  Dewey had to remain positive and believe that he could deal with the man that had abducted him. Greed is a powerful incentive. It was not lost on him that the killer had taken the money from his wallet. Everyone has a price. He hadn’t got where he was by not recognising both strengths and weaknesses in people and turning them to his advantage.

  Gabriel locked the workshop door and walked over to his garage. He got in the Golf and reversed out, to drive a little way north to the A12, which he headed west on until he reached Leytonstone, then carried on with no particular destination in mind, before parking in a quiet spot alongside the River Lea in Waltham Forest.

  Walking to a nearby bench, he sat down and just enjoyed the idyllic surroundings for a few minutes before using Dewey’s mobile phone to call New Scotland Yard and ask to be put through to Detective Inspector Barnes.

  “DI Barnes,” Matt said when Tom passed the phone to him, mouthing ‘The Clown ‘as he did.

  “I just thought I’d call and let you know that I’ve been busy again,” Gabriel said through a couple of wads of kitchen towel that he’d folded up and placed between his teeth and cheeks to modify his voice beyond recognition. “You have a new crime scene to process in Paddington. It’s unit forty-three of a storage facility at the bottom of Saxon Road. The place belongs to the guy that is now my houseguest. I could give you more details, but that would spoil the fun. You’ll work it out quick enough when you trace this call and the owner of the phone.”

  “And just why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’m your case, Barnes. You’re hunting me, and you don’t seem to appreciate that I’m taking care of business that you are unable to. Scum of the earth walk free from courts, or are given sentences that are woefully inadequate for the crimes that they committed. I’m not a clown, I’m an equaliser.”

  “You’re a self-appointed executioner,” Matt said. “That makes you as bad as the people that you take delight in killing. I think that you started by avenging the rape and murder of Josie Madsen, and then you got a taste for it and carried on. You enjoy it, you sad freak, and I’ll take you down. I have a list, and maybe I’ve already run past you on it. But I’m one of those cops that go over old ground again and again until I close a case. You’re on borrowed time, and you are a clown; a sad and bad one, incapable of making anybody laugh.”

  “You disappoint me. I thought that you would see the need for someone like me to deal with those that you can’t,” Gabriel said. “Obviously I overestimated you. You don’t care enough about right and wrong, you’re just going through the motions.”

  “What I think doesn’t come into it. The law is what we have, and so whether it’s fit for purpose or not, it’s all we’ve got. You can’t take it into your own hands without being outside it and part of the problem.”

  “Your minions will have traced this by now,” Gabriel said. “Be very careful Barnes, because you’ve just made it onto my list by calling me a sad freak.”

  The call was ended. Matt racked the phone and waited. Phil phoned a few seconds later and said, “We’ve got a location, boss. The call was made from Waltham Forest, and the phone is still switched on. We should have a name to go with it any second.”

  “It won’t be the killer’s mobile,” Matt said. “And I daresay he just left it and walked away. Get out there with Tam or Errol and see what you can find.”

  “On it, boss,” Phil said. “And I’ve just got an update. The phone is registered to Dewey Marvin.”

  “Okay,” Matt said. “Give me a call when you get to the scene.”

  Tom raised his eyebrows and waited for details as Matt hung up.

  “The call was made from Waltham forest, and the phone is registered in Dewey Marvin’s name,” Matt said to him as he stepped over to the corner table and poured a fresh cup of coffee. “And The Clown has given me an address in Paddington. I think we’ll find a body there.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Tom said. “I need a break away from this bloody desk. Meet me outside in the car park with Pete in ten minutes.”

  “What about my gun?” Matt said.

  “I haven’t got clearance to return it to you yet. You’ll have to rely on Pete and me to cover your arse if we get in a gunfight, which is to say the least highly unlikely.”

  Pete drove, and they arrived outside the gates of the storage facility thirty minutes after receiving the phone call from The Clown. The surrounding streets were like a ghost town. The old terrace houses were boarded up. Some had been brightened with graffiti, but there was no sign of life, apart from a solitary cat that was just jutting bones under mangy looking fur. It sat in the mouth of an entryway between two of the houses and watched them; a lone witness to their presence.

  Matt climbed out and slid the gates open and walked through, to be followed by Pete, who drove around him and found the aisle that the lockup they were interested in was situated.

  The door of forty-three was of the rollup variety. The original white paint was now faded and peeling off the rusting metal beneath it. Tom and Pete waited till Matt sauntered up to them.

  Pete drew his gun as Tom bent down to twist the handle and pull the door up.

  The low cloud was a barrier to sunlight. The shadowy interior was pigeon grey. Pete trained his gun on the figure sitting in a chair, and Tom moved to the side, stepped up to were a body was laid on the cement floor and checked the neck for a pulse, knowing as soon as his fingers touched the ice-cold skin that the man was dead.

  Walking around the chair, Pete took one look at the figure secured to it and returned the gun to its holster, after first glancing across to where Tom was straightening up and shaking his head, signifying that the other body was lifeless and no longer a threat. Matt checked the pockets of the big black guy stretched out on the floor. Found a wallet and opened it. There was a see-through card holder in the front, and behind the plastic he could make out the photo and details of a driver’s licence. The photo was a match for the corpse. And the name on the licence was John James Campbell.

  A wallet in a pocket of a jacket on the floor with other clothing also had a licence, which was of the dead guy in the chair. He had been Carl Lincoln.

  “I’ll run their names,” Tom said when Matt told him and Pete their identities.

  Matt handed him the licences.

  Pete got on his phone and made calls. They needed a crime scene team, a Home Office pathologist and some uniforms to attend.

  Matt inspected the bodies as Tom and Pete stepped outside to make the calls. They had also left to breathe in some fresh air. The unit stank of a trapped melange of oil from a lamp, blood, sweat, piss and shit.

  The naked body slumped in the chair had two bullet holes to the chest. The one on the ground had a single gunshot that had entered the left eye and blown the back of his skull out. There was also what appeared to be a fresh knife wound to the face, running down from the forehead to the mouth, but there was no weapon in sight. The killer had obviously taken it with him.

  They sat in the car and waited and discussed what had gone down. Tom had received a call. Campbell and Lincoln were known to be muscle for Dewey Marvin, and Marvin could not be contacted.

  “Marvin is a self-made, third-rate racketeer,” Tom said. “He stays on the street because anyone that poses a threat to him winds up dead or too scared to stand as a witness against him.”

  “Looks like prison would be a life choice he’d make at this moment, if The Clown has got him,” Pete said. “I would think that the next time anyone sees him he’ll be dead, wearing a mask, and with his throat cut and GUILTY carved in his back.”

  Matt’s phone rang. It was Phil. “We found the mobile,” he said. “It was under a bench next to the river.”

  “Stay there,” Matt said. “Keep the area clear. I’ll get techies out to look for trace, although I don’t expect there’ll be any latents on the phone or the bench.”

  Two police constables turned up in a patrol car and Tom told one of th
em to stay at the unit and the other to walk back to the gates and make sure that no one but the forensic team and the pathologist entered the compound.

  “Let’s go,” Tom said to Pete. “It’s serving no useful purpose us hanging around here like spare pricks at a wedding.”

  Pete grinned and drove off, past the uniformed copper and out of the open gates.

  Back in the squad room, Pete sat at his desk, booted up his computer terminal and quickly pulled everything that was on file concerning Dewey Marvin.

  At the same time that Matt was pouring coffee for the three of them, Dewey was lying very still as the man known as The Clown walked across the workshop floor towards him, smiling and holding Dewey’s straight razor in his hand. The Stealers Wheel song flooded into Dewey’s mind, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if the man had started dancing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MATT was more than a little frustrated. The Clown was playing them, and they were no nearer to identifying him than they had been at the beginning. The two murdered men found in the storage unit were no loss; they’d reaped what they’d sown. As for Dewey Marvin’s almost certain fate, that was of no grave concern to him either. The gangster had plenty of blood on his hands and deserved what he got. But the killer had to be caught. The pensioner, Emily Henshaw, had been an innocent who had obviously witnessed part or all of what had gone down at Danby’s bedsit, to subsequently have her throat cut to protect her murderer’s identity. And he had even robbed her. A friend of Emily’s had been at a bingo hall with her that evening and said that Emily had won four hundred pounds. The money was not recovered; hence it was safe to assume that her killer had taken the time to go through her handbag, find her purse and empty it. To Matt’s way of thinking that was about as appalling as it gets. The Clown was guilty of murder, mutilation of corpses and robbing the dead. He was as bad if not worse than the wrongdoers that he condemned and stalked and killed. Anger spiked in Matt’s mind. He had a need akin to hunger or thirst. Perhaps that’s what drove and made what he did valid to him. He always became consumed with a dark passion bordering on addiction to bring killers to justice.

  It was an hour later that Tom, now back upstairs in his own office, phoned Matt. He had obtained the necessary warrants to serve on Rhonda Gould.

  Marci drove Matt to Adam Street and parked in a courtyard behind the Westminster thoroughfare that served several offices, including The RG Agency. There was a rear entry with parking for nine or ten vehicles. It was full, but Marci just parked the pool Mondeo behind a Volvo and switched off the engine. And two transit vans with search officers pulled in behind. There was a fire escape and a door that was locked, so Matt and Marci had to walk around to the front to gain entry to the building. Matt told the sergeant in charge of the search teams to wait until he phoned him before following them in.

  After being shown ID, the receptionist asked them to take a seat. They declined.

  “We need to see Ms Gould right now,” Matt said.

  The girl looked at Matt as if he was a child molester or rapist as she picked up a phone and spoke in a whisper.

  Fifteen seconds later, Rhonda Gould came through to the small reception area, gave Matt a measured smile and said, “How can I help you, Inspector?”

  “By going back to your office, Ms Gould. We need to talk to you in private.”

  Rhonda led them to her office and closed the door behind them. “Intriguing,” she said, addressing Matt as if Marci was not present. “Please end the suspense and tell me why you’re back here.”

  “You’re a suspect in the murders of Jeff Goodwin, Danielle Cooper and Dominic Wilson,” Matt said. “We have warrants to search these premises and your home and car.”

  He took the warrants from his pocket and held them out.

  Rhonda snatched the documents from him, flipped through them and sighed. “This is totally unnecessary,” she said as she thrust the warrants back in his hand. “I have nothing to hide, because I had absolutely nothing to do with their deaths. What possible reason could you have to think that I did?”

  “You represented two people that we now know for a fact did not commit suicide,” Matt said. “Both of them had let it be known that they were going to leave your agency, and we also know that the murderer is a female.”

  “And just what makes you think that?”

  “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  “I need to phone my solicitor.”

  “No problem. But before you do I need the keys to your car and house.”

  Rhonda knew that she had no choice in the matter, but pushed. “And if I refuse until my solicitor is present?”

  “Then I would have no alternative but to have you taken into custody,” Matt said.

  “On what fucking charge?” Rhonda asked, now fuming and almost spitting the words out.

  “Obstruction,” Matt said as he punched in the number of the sergeant waiting in the rear car park and told him to come up. “You can stay and keep out of the way, or leave here in handcuffs.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Inspector,” Rhonda said as she picked her mobile phone up off the top of her desk and speed-dialled her solicitor.

  “I’ve made enough in my time to not let it bother me,” Matt said. “Please go and take a seat in your reception.”

  Marci accompanied Rhonda out of the office, and Matt stayed and looked around as he waited for the sergeant. There was a separate room that he supposed Rhonda used to entertain high-flying clients in. It had a fancy bar, two plush settees and a granite-topped coffee table the size of a door. He walked its length and into another much smaller room. It was a bathroom. He didn’t expect the search of her place of work to be beneficial. If she had any of the items he needed to give him reason to arrest her, then he was sure that they would be at her home, which was adjacent to the Old Deer Park on Lower Mortlake Road in Richmond, eight miles southwest of the city.

  Sergeant Don Morgan arrived. He was an experienced crime scene coordinator, and although this was not a crime scene, he would treat it as such and overlook nothing. He knew what articles they were hoping to find, and had discussed the case in depth with Matt.

  “I reckon a couple of officers can handle this place,” Matt said to Don. “I suggest that you and the majority of your team come out to the house at Richmond with me.”

  Don took a minute to give the place the once over and agreed with Matt. He made a call and arranged for two officers to come up to the second floor office.

  “You have a choice, Ms Gould,” Matt said as he made ready to leave. “Stay here or accompany us to your residence.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Rhonda said as she called her solicitor again and redirected him to her home address.

  Matt was impressed when they arrived at Marston House. It was a double-fronted, three-storey detached residence situated in private grounds in walled gardens. He guessed that if put on the market it would have an asking price of three or four million. Richmond was a wealthy town.

  “You have a very nice looking house,” Matt said to Rhonda as Marci pulled in between ornamental pillars, drove up the broad sweep of the drive and parked next to a detached double garage that was linked to the house by a short access passageway.

  “And you’re wondering how a single working woman like me can afford to live here. Am I right, Inspector?”

  Matt nodded.

  “I was born here,” Rhonda said. “My father was a very successful city banker, and this was the retreat that he chose to buy and live in with my mother and I. I’ve never needed to do anything to earn money. Until I was in my mid-twenties I travelled the world and was basically a waste of space. I got bored with it and opened the agency as something to give me a little purpose. There were a lot of actors, producers and directors in my social circle, so it was fun to represent some of my friends and promote their careers.

  “Now that both of my parents are gone, I suppose I’m just a rich bitch, with the agency as a hobby to r
un and keep my grey matter sparking.”

  “Are you trying to make a point?” Matt said as he climbed out of the car.

  Rhonda sat sideways and demurely straightened her pencil skirt as she exited the three-year old Mondeo that was in need of a wash and wax and full valeting.

  “Only that the loss of a couple of B list TV show hosts from my books was no big deal,” Rhonda said. “I didn’t need their ten percent. And so what you are doing is unnecessary, more than a little exasperating, and very intrusive. To have those trained monkeys in overalls in the van behind us pawing through my personal belongings is an affront.”

  “The monkeys will carry out their pawing with all due haste and professionalism,” Matt said as they entered the front door and found themselves in a spacious hallway with an impressive chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. “We’re just doing our job, Ms Gould. Money or the loss of it is only one of many reasons that individuals commit murder.”

  Rhonda smiled. “Knock yourselves out,” she said. “This fiasco will make for fun conversation at dinner parties, after you’ve seen the light and realise that I’m not a bloody serial killer.”

  Rhonda strode off into the kitchen. Marci stayed close.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” Rhonda asked Marci, acknowledging her properly for the first time.

  “Coffee is my preferred poison,” Marci said, and smiled at the woman that she was now almost sure was innocent of the murders.

  “I’m afraid I’ve only got instant.”

  “That’ll be fine. No milk or sugar.”

  “What about your intense boss?”

  “He takes it the same.”

  Rhonda had decided to make the best of an annoying situation. The police were doing their jobs, and she knew that it wasn’t personal. And the detective with the strong-jaw and rangy physique intrigued her. She asked Marci, “What turns his wheels?”

  “I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer that,” Marci said. “We don’t get personal with suspects.”