‘Craig. You are being rather dim. It’s gone five in the afternoon, and I’m here with Sam.’
He attempted to click stop on the machine at this point, but the buttons were tiny and for some reason it ran on and took two more attempts. So she also heard: ‘I can’t put her on the line, because she’s gagged. In fact she is rather trussed up altogether. I’ve been enjoying her again, Craig, in a variety of ways, but—’
Ellen’s scream of betrayal drowned out the rest.
Chapter Sixteen
It was DI Claire Mulholland’s bad luck that she was in the first car responding to the location tracked by the NCA team. Sat in the back, she was hanging on for grim death as the BMW touched eighty along winding country lanes heading for Westmeare. In front of her, two long-haired leather jacket-clad detectives called Worrell and Blunt seemed to think they were starring in a Netflix drama series. Blunt’s extravagant revving and gear changing almost seemed designed to attract attention. He kept up a banter with Worrell at a low enough volume not to be heard in the back, and largely ignored her. She may have been senior to both, but they clearly regarded her as extraneous baggage. Just a local plod along for the ride.
‘It’s not very far,’ Worrell said, looking down at the iPad on which the short trace of the burner phone was illustrated against a Google map. ‘Down here somewhere,’ he said to Blunt. The phone had been turned off within a minute of leaving a voicemail message at Gillard’s, and had been on for only a couple of minutes beforehand.
They shot past the Westmeare bus stop, the last place where Beatrice Ulbricht, at least the real Beatrice Ulbricht, had been seen. ‘Stop here,’ Claire said. ‘This will be the place.’
Blunt ignored her and instead took an instruction from Worrell to turn right, with a G-force that would have thrown Claire across the car had she not been belted in. Adrian Singer’s cottage flashed past at missile speed.
‘Blunt!’ bellowed Claire. ‘Stop the fucking car, that’s an order.’
She saw his eyes slide to Worrell and a slight smile before he jammed the brake on so hard that Claire almost joined them in the front. The BMW slid sideways, tyres smoking, clipping a hedge until Blunt, steering into the skid, straightened it up, then whipped the vehicle round 180 degrees.
‘Stop being such a little wanker, detective constable,’ she said.
He tugged a generous forelock towards her. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He managed to make even that sound insubordinate.
‘Give me the iPad. I think you’ll find the message was sent from the bus stop.’
Worrell tossed the device over his shoulder without looking at her. She caught it, got out of the car and walked the hundred yards back to the bus stop. It was a precise match for the location. She looked around the bus shelter and noticed that on the wooden seat was a pair of women’s knickers. Basic M&S cotton jobs.
A message, no doubt. She took a small plastic evidence bag from her shoulder bag, and carefully picked up the item. The BMW was idling on the other side of the road, and she crossed over and resumed her position in the back seat.
‘Find anything, ma’am?’
‘A pair of women’s knickers.’
Their heads swivelled to look at her in precise symmetry. ‘Let’s have a decko,’ Worrell said, with a bit more than professional enthusiasm.
‘Use your imagination. I’m sure you have plenty of stock images stored there.’ She rang the incident room to report her find. Otara was put on the line.
‘We have a dashcam ANPR camera just two hundred yards away,’ he said. ‘Bracketing vehicle movements five minutes either side of the message time, we got a quite manageable seventeen hits that we are currently processing. Stay in position.’ He hung up.
Claire relayed the message to Worrell and Blunt. She looked out of the window and saw on the side road Adrian Singer walking down the road towards them. It didn’t look like a planned walk on such a chilly spring day because he was in a lightweight jumper, shorts and Crocs. He looked up and down the road, and rubbed his arms for warmth, before walking over to the BMW.
Claire lowered the rear window and said: ‘Hello. Remember me?’
‘Yes. There were some boy racers going up and down the road just a few minutes ago. I could hear them even from the back of the house,’ he said.
‘I’ll keep an eye out,’ she replied.
‘So what are you doing?’
At this point Blunt slid down his window and forcefully told the man to return immediately to his home. Singer recoiled at the directness of the order, and radiated indignation as he retraced his steps.
‘…and Blunt by nature,’ Claire said archly.
‘He could blow our cover, ma’am.’
‘Detective Constable Blunt, I fear it is your adolescent driving that is responsible for that.’
* * *
‘I can’t believe it! This was the man who said he had never loved anyone like he loved me. This was the man who made me go to the gym before work, who threw away and burned half my wardrobe because it was too frumpy, the man who went through my phone deleting the phone numbers of any male friends, the man who deleted all friend requests on Facebook. He claimed to be so besotted with me, the new slimmed-down me, that he couldn’t ever look at anybody else.’ Ellen’s sobbing tirade poured out.
‘I know he exploited you terribly, but if I may—’
‘Do you know, Craig, what he did for me on the night of my birthday?’
‘Ellen, please.’ Gillard had the tricky task of trying to coax this scorned and deeply wounded woman away from her pain, and to focus on the here and now. He had very little time and needed to get from her every piece of information that might save Sam.
‘Gabriel made me a beautiful birthday cake, cherries and icing and everything. All gluten-free too. I don’t know how he found the time. He must have loved me, mustn’t he?’
‘I don’t know, Ellen, people do strange things.’
It took another five minutes to calm her down, and as long again to get his questions answered. However it was already clear how little Ellen really knew about the man she had loved. Gillard rounded off the call by once again pledging her to secrecy, and reminding her to take her phone in to the nearest police station. ‘Your prompt action could save Sam’s life,’ he said.
He ended the call gently, then rang Otara with all the information he had acquired.
‘Gabriel Hallam is the man we should be looking for. Ellen Bramley recognised his voice very clearly.’ Gillard said. ‘I think it was he who stole the Mitsubishi Warrior. I think you also need to get a victim liaison officer to Ms Bramley. She is not only emotionally vulnerable, but she may need protecting if Hallam comes back.’
‘Okay, we’ll do that.’ He told Gillard about the women’s underwear and the call made from the bus stop. ‘We’ve got some promising ANPR hits too, that we’re currently analysing. None on the vehicles of interest list, and not surprisingly no sign of the Warrior. If our suspect drives through even the tiniest back lane in Westmeare, one of our mobile units will certainly have captured the registration number.’
‘What if he walked?’ Gillard said.
There was a short silence at the other end. ‘Well, that hasn’t fitted his M.O. so far, has it?’
‘Who knows? He’s devious enough.’
‘If so, one of our officers will spot him,’ Otara said, then hung up.
‘But you don’t really know what he looks like do you?’ Gillard muttered to himself as he looked down at his jotter.
Gabriel Hallam. Gary Harrison. G and H. It made a lot of sense. Harrison must have groomed Ellen to get close to Sam, to find out where she lived. The cold, controlling strategy, played for the long-term, was chilling. And that meant Harrison was the thief who had stolen the Warrior. The biggish bloke in a car coat, identified by the owner who had rushed out to save his car.
A frown crossed Gillard’s face. He rang Ellen Bramley back, but the landline she had called him from went unanswered. Of cour
se, he had just insisted she rush off to the police station.
Damn. He really needed to ask her a couple more questions and he didn’t have her mobile number. She had told him that Gabriel Hallam had driven the Warrior on one of their early dates. But from what he half-remembered Sam telling him, Ellen had been going out with Gabriel for months. He re-read his notes. That’s right, since January. But the Warrior had been stolen less than two weeks ago. If Ellen’s recollection was correct, and this was the same green Mitsubishi Warrior, then Gary Harrison wasn’t just Gabriel Hallam.
He was also Kyle Halliday.
Because that early date with Bramley must have occurred before the Warrior was stolen. Who else could have been driving it but Halliday? Unless he was in the habit of lending his car out.
Gillard held his head in his hands. The new explanation didn’t make any more sense than the old one. Because as every member of the CID had seen, in the ‘case of the flying slipper’, someone really had stolen the car from Halliday. He couldn’t have stolen it from himself, because there was CCTV showing him running out to stop the car. And CCTV doesn’t lie.
Moreover, some big bloke in a car coat and ski mask had used the vehicle to try to run him down. And that was well after it was stolen. At a time when Kyle Halliday was still on crutches. Either way, there must now be a big question mark over Halliday’s witness account.
The detective felt his brain was going to explode. Worst of all, none of this conjecture seemed to bring him any closer to finding Sam.
* * *
John Perry had been off duty from six. No longer the detective inspector, he could get back to his freelance operation. He was sitting in his VW Polo just down the road from 16 Wensleydale Walk. At 6.42 p.m. the same athletic-looking, dark-haired man he had seen before exited the house, got into the black Range Rover and drove off. Perry was tempted to follow him, but there would be other opportunities for that. He had seen a woman’s face at the window, and thought it might be a good opportunity to speak to her. Angela Wright, thirty-three, a company director at AWL Property. He’d found out quite a lot about her from LinkedIn. Perry wondered if she knew what her partner’s ‘hobbies’ were. He had the perfect excuse to get a little closer.
He waited a few minutes and then went up and rang the doorbell.
The woman who answered was tall and arrestingly attractive, seemingly dressed for a night out.
‘Detective Inspector John Perry,’ he said, showing his card.
‘Is it about the stolen car? Because if it is, Kyle’s just gone. He’ll be away in Madrid on business for a couple of days.’
‘I just need to double-check a few details with you.’
She sighed and rolled her deep blue eyes before showing him in. She had long wavy dark hair, one of those lacy black blouses that hint at the underwear beneath, and a grey knee-length pleated skirt. With the high heels she had at least four inches on him. Perry was juggling with unfamiliar emotions. His years as a schoolteacher, seeing in pupils the damage caused by self-image worries, had stopped him judging women by their appearance. After leaving education and joining the police he had been shocked by the outdated attitude amongst male colleagues, whose treatment of women was often, to put it mildly, Neanderthal. But right now, his own testosterone was surfacing. This long dormant part of him wanted to try to seduce this woman, to treat her like Kyle Halliday had treated Mel. He caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror, and common sense intervened. A thinning-haired, paunchy forty-two-year-old with a hangdog expression who was, he had recently been assured, under-equipped to please any woman. Ugly, but definitely angry.
The woman introduced herself as Angie. ‘I’m due out in half an hour,’ she said, clacking round the kitchen in her heels. ‘So I hope I can answer your questions quickly.’
Perry had not really planned in detail what he was going to ask, and, feeling rather nervous, asked her to describe what she had heard on the night of the car theft. ‘Well, I didn’t hear too much at first; it was just when Kyle woke up and ran downstairs.’
He made notes and then asked: ‘I understand you are a company director?’
‘Yes, industrial property company. Bits and pieces really, all over Surrey and on the other side of the M4.’
‘What does your partner do?’
‘He’s a self-employed international telecoms consultant.’
‘Where is he based?’
‘All over. He works a lot on the move, or from his home office here. But he is actually one of my own tenants as well.’ She trotted out an address. ‘He was kind enough to take one of the most unsaleable dumps I have, up near Pirbright. I think he keeps his jet ski there.’ She looked at her watch anxiously, and said. ‘So overall, has there been any progress on recovering the Warrior?’
‘No. But we’re trying to tie this crime in with others.’ Perry really wanted to ask permission to take a look around, but he could see that the woman was worried about the time. There would always be another opportunity, and in the meantime he had an address to work with. She showed him out, and closed the door behind him. He waited a few seconds, standing between the two large planters that framed the doorway, then reached into his pocket for a roll of insulation tape that he’d had the presence of mind to bring with him. He knew from watching the CCTV of the car theft that he was standing in the blind spot of the camera mounted two feet above the front door. With his teeth he tore off a small strip, then stepped up and carefully balanced himself on one of the planters so he could reach it. He stuck the strip over the camera lens.
Blanking out the CCTV would be essential for when he came back later that night.
* * *
Like Perry, PC Lynne Fairbanks was also off duty on Saturday night. She was waiting with a certain sense of anticipation on a bar stool in the cocktail bar of the Gilded Swan, an exclusive eatery at Walton-on-Thames. Her date for the evening was running a little late, but had apparently called ahead and got them to serve her a bottle of chilled champagne. Now that was style. By contrast, the last time her boyfriend Michael had deigned to take her out, they had shared a mediocre pizza while she listened to him whining about money the whole time. Michael thought she was working the overnight shift helping on the Ulbricht murder case.
As she sipped her drink at the bar, the ice bucket at her elbow, she saw Kyle Halliday making his way across the crowded room. A big smile, the open-necked mauve shirt over that V-shaped physique, and his tight jeans.
‘Hello, you sexy beast,’ she said, watching his eyes as they were drawn down to the low-cut blouse she had deliberately worn. She stroked the slight silvery scar which ran down along his jawline.
‘I’ve been thinking about you, Lynne. I hope you’re enjoying the bubbles.’ He topped up her glass, poured one for himself and toasted her, leaning in between her thighs against the bar stool, and kissing her delicately on the forehead. Already she could feel the heat of him down there, and eased forward on the bar stool to make contact.
The excitement of their tryst just a few days ago was still fresh in her mind; indeed, she’d hardly been able to think about anything else than what Kyle had done to her while she sat on his kitchen worktop. It was hard to believe he had ever needed a crutch to get about, given the athleticism and sheer stamina he had shown. The fact that he had booked a room for them both upstairs for tonight seemed to hint at a repeat performance.
She wasn’t a fool. Kyle might be a beautiful man, but she was fully aware he was a bit out of her league. It wasn’t her job to go barging into his relationship, trying to take ownership. The occasional exciting night would be enough.
As they sat down he said, ‘I want to know all about you, Lynne, how such a lovely sensitive woman fought her way through as a cop. I imagine you need fairly sharp elbows given what a male organisation the police is.’
She smiled. ‘It’s not as bad as it used to be, but there are still plenty of old-fashioned attitudes. Funnily enough it’s supposed to be easier for women once you
start getting promoted. There are loads of female chief constables now, and they’ve proved themselves as tough as the men.’
He let her talk, asking intelligent questions, and seemed to be listening to everything she said.
‘When I first got your message,’ she said. ‘I just thought you wanted to persuade me to prioritise the theft investigation. But I realised I misjudged you.’
He laughed, an infectious chuckle that seemed to dissolve his face. ‘Well, don’t get me wrong. I do want to know that you’re all working flat out on it, but like your bullying colleague said, it’s probably in bits in a crate on its way abroad.’
‘My bullying colleague?’
‘Yes. DC Hoskins. I watched him. He talked over you, rolled his eyes at me when you were giving your theory, and generally treated you like a doormat. I hope you don’t mind me saying?’
Lynne was taken aback. ‘I’m just impressed you noticed. Most men wouldn’t.’
‘Can’t stand that kind of behaviour,’ he said, rotating the stem of his champagne glass as he stared into the drink. ‘Of course, once upon a time…’ He shook his head, as if at a painful memory. ‘Look. I’m different from how I used to be. I was once a paratrooper, did a tour of duty in Helmand, and actually realised I wasn’t mentally tough enough for some of the things I saw.’ He described seeing a couple of colleagues terribly wounded by roadside bombs. ‘I lay on my bunk shivering. I thought I’d become a coward or something, but I just couldn’t face it. I was diagnosed with PTSD, and ended up coming home.’
She stroked his face again. ‘No one would ever guess about your vulnerable side.’ Now she wanted to know about his wife, to find out how damaged the marriage was, but he seemed to read her mind.
‘You don’t want to worry about Angie. We’ve been more like friends for nearly two years now. It’s the nature of my work that destroyed our relationship, and I do feel guilty about it. Don’t get me wrong, I do care about her, particularly her being alone so many nights now we got broken into, but we go our own way a lot of the time.’
The Body Under the Bridge Page 20