The Last Resolution (Mike Wesley Series Book 2)

by John Stewart

  Mike saw a desperation in Simon’s eyes, bordering on fear as if not solving these crimes had very real implications for him. He also noted Rebecca’s silence following the new information.

  “Okay, Mr. Meadowcroft,” Mike began.

  “Please, call me Simon.”

  “Sorry Simon, old habit,” Mike said, holding his hands up apologetically. “Before we take another step, we need to explain exactly how we’re prepared to get involved.”

  “I’m all ears,” Simon replied, taking a sip of his topped up beverage.

  “Right, well first of all, this will be treated as a story that we can publish should anything come of our investigations.”

  Simon nodded his head. “Anything you find that we can use to get a conviction is yours to write about. Obviously we would need to be careful about certain details, but you’ll get exclusive access.”

  Mike looked at Rebecca, who was still holding her tongue. “If we’re going to devote time to this, we need to be able to write a story regardless of how the investigation turns out. You have to understand. If we spend the papers time and resources, our editor will want something to show for it.”

  Simon thought for a minute. “Okay, I understand. Perhaps you can write about the process of your investigations? I don’t mind how you spin it.”

  Mike again looked at Rebecca for her input, to which she gave a silent nod of approval.

  “Okay then. Secondly, we work the research end only. We do not interview anybody or even visit crime scenes.” Simon gave a disapproving look as Mike continued. “This is non-negotiable. We will look at the evidence, point you in the right direction and let your old mates at the Met do the rest. Is that acceptable?” Mike’s tone was firm and deliberate.

  “I’m not sure research alone will cut it. I’ve been looking at these case files for years and I keep hitting dead ends. I’m afraid I’ve exhausted every avenue with my former colleagues and they won’t look into anything I give them unless it’s new evidence. I’m sorry to say, I’ve burned several bridges over the years.”

  Mike looked to Rebecca, who remained silent.

  “As I said Simon, we’ll look over the cases and see if we can spot something with fresh eyes, but as for fieldwork, maybe you should hire a P.I.”

  Simon shook his head. “No, you’re the people I need,” he said, omitting the fact that they were his only real option. “I’ve dealt with private investigators before and most of them are burnt out ex-cops looking for a quick payday.” He paused for a moment. “Very well, I’ll do the legwork on whatever you find, but I don’t drive so maybe a lift now and then could be arranged?”

  Mike looked to Rebecca once more for her opinion.

  “What do you think, Miss Hollister?”

  She put her cup on the table and nodded.

  Mike smiled. “Looks like you have a deal Mr. Meado… sorry, Simon,” he said, correcting himself.

  Simon looked more relieved than pleased.

  “That’s great, I have the materials you’ll need all set up in the spare room. I can give you an overview of each case, but nothing more. I think it’s best you draw your own opinions on the evidence you see.”

  “That’s exactly what we were thinking,” Mike replied with a confident smile.

  “Okay then,” Simon said, patting his hands off his knees. “Would you like to follow me?”

  Rebecca stood up. “No, we actually have some other appointments to keep today, but we’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning and get started then.”

  Mike stood, trying to hide his surprise as she walked towards the door, unsure of what appointments she was referring to. “Yes, tomorrow would suit better. How’s nine-thirty sound?”

  Simon stood and shrugged his shoulders with a slight look of disappointment before following them to the exit.

  “Right, I suppose tomorrow will have to do then.”

  “Thank you for the tea,” Rebecca said as she opened the front door and walked out.

  “See you tomorrow Simon. Fingers crossed we can be of some help,” Mike said as he followed Rebecca out the front door.

  Walking down the hallway, Mike stopped and held Rebecca’s shoulder. “Becca wait! What was all that about? I thought you said we had the all clear from Munroe to follow this up today?”

  “Sorry, we do, I just want to find out more about this guy before we start working with him. I have a feeling there’s more to these cases than he’s letting on. Did you notice the apartment? There’s a wine rack in the kitchen, but it’s empty.”

  “He’s out of wine, so what?” Mike said dismissively.

  “There was a twelve-step guide on his bookshelf and I know from bitter experience what a drinker looks like. He’s in recovery and I’d bet, not long on the wagon.”

  “And what if he is? Maybe that’s the reason he wants to work on these cases?”

  Rebecca turned and started back towards the lift.

  “I just want to know a bit more about who we’re dealing with first. If I don’t find anything then fine, we’ll book a week to work the story.”

  Chapter 5

  After spending the afternoon looking into the life and times of former Detective Sergeant Simon Meadowcroft, Rebecca’s cautious mind was appeased. Thanks to his old friends on the force, no record of the misconduct allegations nor his downward spiral into alcoholism was to be found in the public domain. As far as anyone could see, Simon was a successful and respected police detective who simply took early retirement. The fact that she knew he was in recovery had little impact on the investigative work they were about to undertake and with her curiosity satisfied, Rebecca contacted her editor and officially placed herself and Mike on the story. However, Munroe advised her that Mike may be needed at short notice to cover any absentees at the office. Being one of the newer additions to the paper, Mike had no choice but to agree and the next morning they arrived at Simon’s apartment on time and ready to get started.

  Simon had the tea and coffee already poured upon their arrival and showed them to their new makeshift office with an enthusiasm he could not disguise. The sight of all the case files gave both Mike and Rebecca a distinct sense of déjà vu as the layout was quite similar to the one Mike had set up in his former home in Kilcrew.

  Simon had arranged the boxes around the room, with the first case already laid out on the table.

  “I hope this is comfortable for you. All the files I could get copies of are there and the physical evidence is documented in the pictures. Obviously the originals are in evidence lockup and as these cases are technically still open, I can’t allow you to take anything away. I hope you understand.”

  Mike gave Rebecca a mildly amused look.

  “We understand completely. This isn’t our first time working something like this.”

  “Which is why you’re here, Mr. Wesley. Do you want me to go over the timeline with you?”

  “No thanks, I think we’ll manage to figure it out ourselves,” Mike said with a confident smile.

  “Okay great, I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve laid out the oldest case first but feel free to start wherever you want. It’s completely up to yourselves. There’s stationery over there,” Simon said, pointing towards a collection of pens, pads and pins on a shelf under the wall map. “So feel free to use whatever you need.”

  “That’s great thanks, Simon,” Mike said as he sat down.

  “Yeah, we should have plenty to be getting on with,” said Rebecca while removing her shoulder bag.

  “Okay, shout if you need anything,” Simon said as he left and closed the door behind him.

  Mike placed his hand on Rebecca’s knee.

  “Okay, Miss Hollister. Are you ready for this?”

  Rebecca felt much better about taking on the story and gave him a confident smile as she set up her audio recorder.

  “Yep, let’s get to work.”

  Mike picked up the first folder and began reading the summary. “Okay, first up we have a … murd
er, shocker.”

  Rebecca exhaled and gave him a disapproving look.

  “Don’t be flippant, Mike.”

  “I’m not, just pointing out the obvious. Oh, it’s from 2005. Not so bad. At least we’ll have some decent pictures to work from this time around.”

  “Go on,” Rebecca said impatiently.

  “Male victim named Pierce Renshaw. He was a thirty-six-year-old construction worker from Leeds, found dead in his burned out Jeep on January 8th.” As he read out the details, Rebecca began looking through the pictures of the scene. “The Jeep was found in an isolated car park beside an area known as Spankers Hill Wood in Richmond Park. According to this, the autopsy discovered burns to his oesophagus and lungs.”

  “Meaning?” Rebecca quizzed as she winced at the images.

  Mike let out an uneasy sigh. “Meaning he was burned alive. He literally inhaled the flames.”

  Rebecca cringed. “Jesus, why didn’t he get out?”

  “Yeah, good question. Says here, there was nothing wrong with the door locks and his seatbelt was unbuckled, weird. Forensics also found traces of petrol inside the car, which they suspect was used as an accelerant.”

  Rebecca handed him some of the photos showing the burned out vehicle. “Would that not be common enough in a car fire?”

  Mike shook his head, pointing at the report.

  “Says here, it was a diesel engine. Looks like it was deliberate.”

  “Kinda suggests a suicide though. Why was it ruled a murder?”

  “Well let’s have a look.” Mike looked at the pictures closely for a few minutes.

  “That’s why!” he said holding up one of the pictures. “See, look at the broken windows.”

  Rebecca saw all but the front and rear windows had been smashed. “But surely the heat from the fire could have smashed the glass?”

  Mike nodded and pointed to a close up of the driver side.

  “Yes, the heat could, but look at the glass around the car,” he said pointing to another picture.

  Rebecca examined the image and saw only shattered glass surrounding the vehicle. “I see it, but I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “The amount of glass outside the driver side window is far less than all the other windows. That could mean that it was smashed in rather than out, see?” he said, pointing to the lack of glass in the close up of the driver side door.

  Rebecca looked at it for a while.

  “Hmm, I guess there is less, but that seems like a stretch by itself, do you not think?”

  Mike picked up the report again.

  “There must be more to point to a murder.” He scanned through the next few lines, searching for more to go on. “Here, the driver door had several small dents and aside from the fire damage, the rest of the bodywork was perfect.”

  Rebecca stepped in. “So, the killer might have put something against the doors to stop Renshaw from escaping? Nasty.”

  “Maybe,” Mike said looking doubtful. “But it’s a very elaborate way to kill somebody. There seems to be no witnesses and the body was only discovered the following day by tourists. CCTV caught the Jeep heading towards the wood at 10.50pm Why was he out there so late? It’s the middle of nowhere.” He put down the summary file and spent some time looking through the crime scene photos.

  Rebecca picked up the summary and read it back.

  “So, we know the how.”

  “Well, sort of,” cautioned Mike.

  Rebecca picked up another file.

  “Maybe we should look at the why?”

  Mike’s focus remained on the pictures as she spoke.

  “By all means, enlighten me,” he said, looking up from the horrific images.

  “Look, here’s the records of his phone and email communications,” Rebecca said, passing him some pages to examine. It didn’t take long to see a pattern in the rows of numbers.

  “Looks like he had a new friend,” Mike said, pointing to a number that appeared several times on each page.

  Rebecca searched further back through the records.

  “Yeah, look here. The first contact was a text sent to his phone three weeks before he died.”

  Mike started counting up the number of messages.

  “Must have been quite the smooth talker. There’s over two hundred text messages on these four pages alone.”

  “Jesus! Remember when people used to call each other?” Rebecca said with a laugh.

  “And this was ten years ago. Showing your age there Becca,” Mike said with a wink.

  “I’ll show you my heel in a minute,” Rebecca fired back with an elbow to Mike’s side. “Are there any details of what was on the texts? Surely they looked into it at the time?”

  Mike picked up the summary file again to see if her confidence in the London police force was warranted.

  “Yeah, they did. It says the details are in folder F-13.”

  Rebecca shuffled the remaining folders on the table and picked out the corresponding one.

  “It’s pretty light,” she said as she opened and viewed its contents. “Looks like they could only track two picture messages as they were sent on a PC and just the one email. The rest must have been just texts.”

  Mike leaned in to get a look at the blurry naked pictures.

  “Pretty poor quality, even for 2005.”

  “Well, you have to remember smaller was better back then, so screen sizes were tiny compared to today’s pocket widescreens,” Rebecca said with a sarcastic tone.

  “Yeah, I suppose. What does the email say?”

  Rebecca checked the other page in the folder.

  “Eh... let me see, it just says ‘I’m gonna give you the experience of a lifetime.’ Not exactly Shakespeare, but it’s enough to get the point across I suppose.”

  “When was it sent?” Mike asked as he began to form his theory.

  Rebecca looked up when she saw the date.

  “January 8th. That’s the same day he was killed.”

  Mike didn’t seem surprised by the fact.

  “Yeah, I don’t suppose they traced who sent the email?”

  Rebecca checked the rest of the details.

  “No, but it was sent from an Internet café here in the city centre. What are you thinking? Romantic hookup gone wrong?”

  Mike silently thought for a few seconds.

  “That’s certainly what it looks like, or at least what the victim thought he was involved in. I’m thinking he was lured to that spot, enticed with promises of all sorts and when he arrived, the killer trapped him in the car and set it on fire. I think this was personal.” Rebecca considered his theory for a minute and had to concede it made sense.

  They spent the rest of the day going over the remaining Forensic and Medical Examiner reports, which provided little information. Rebecca checked online for any similar arson cases around London back then. She found several reports of random firebomb attacks by groups of youths, but nothing along the lines of Pierce Renshaw’s killing.

  The morning soon turned into evening and with all the elements of the case ingested, Mike stood by the map of London and placed a pin at the Spankers Hill Wood location along with a post-it note detailing the date and name of the victim.

  Rebecca stood beside him. “Feels strangely familiar.”

  “Yeah, what do you think so far?” Mike said as he stepped back, putting his arm around her.

  “Not a lot to go on with this one, but all we can do is keep going. We’re bound to find a new lead in one of these cases for Mr. Meadowcroft to follow up on. Come on, I’m starving. Let’s go home.” Mike smiled at the instruction and began to pack up their things.

  At the same time, over in the main bedroom, Simon Meadowcroft was sitting by his bedside table. He took a deep breath and rubbed his chin with a concerned expression as he removed a pair of headphones and pressed the stop button on an audio recording application he had running on his laptop.

  Chapter 6

  The next day was a
Saturday, but it was just another day at the office for Mike and Rebecca. They had spent the previous evening discussing possible angles to begin the story of what appeared likely to be a grisly tale of random unsolved murders. Rebecca favoured going down the ‘Tormented Detective trying desperately to bring closure to victims’ families,’ avenue and began writing up some possible headlines. Mike was more interested in concentrating on the cases for the time being and left her to focus on the journalistic elements. He opted instead to spend the remainder of his night reading another one of his several books on criminal investigation techniques.

  The Saturday morning shoppers meant that traffic en route to Simon’s apartment was slower than normal. They arrived just after 10am and got straight to work on the next case, all the while oblivious to the fact that their every word was being recorded by Simon in the other bedroom. The second case was the murder of a twenty-eight-year-old woman from Maidstone in Kent on March 11th, 2006. Her name was Clarissa Briggs and she worked as a hairdresser in her hometown. She had been on a night out in a London City Centre club with some friends the night she was killed. According to her friends’ statements, she had been with them all night until she went to the toilet and never returned. An inspection of the security camera footage from the bar confirmed their version of events, but no footage of her leaving the club was ever found.

  “We knew something was wrong right away, we had just made plans to go to a party. It was like she just disappeared,” said Rebecca, quoting one of the girls’ statements.

  Police interviewed as many people as they could on the night, but as it was a nightclub, the intoxicated witnesses were less than helpful.

  “Can you imagine the interview process with everyone out of their minds on booze, coke, and God knows what?” Mike said as he read through the many useless statements.

  “Rather them than us. It’s hard enough getting sober people to talk,” replied Rebecca as she topped up her tea from the small pot Simon had brought in for her.