by Damien Boyd
They watched Poland follow Adele and Jeremy into the hospital, Jeremy still carrying Hatty who was waving at them over his shoulder.
‘Now what?’ asked Jane, waving back.
‘Aren’t you going in?’ asked Dixon. ‘You might as well let them check you over, seeing as you’re here.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Well, you need a change of clothes.’ Dixon was watching Hatty still waving as the double doors closed behind them. ‘We’ve got to drop Monty off anyway.’
‘I need a shower too, if we’ve got time.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’ Dixon grinned.
Jane put her arms around his waist and kissed him.
‘And you, going down into that boat. You could’ve drowned,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re doing my head in, you really are. You go out sometimes and I never know whether you’re coming back. I’m not sure I can—’
She pressed her index finger over his lips, silencing him mid-sentence. ‘Shut up,’ she said, before kissing him again. ‘And don’t you ever mention a canal boat holiday to me. All right?’
‘I thought maybe for our honeymoon?’
‘Piss off.’
Chapter Forty-Two
They were back at the cottage an hour later, Dixon feeding Monty while Jane was in the shower.
‘Isn’t it a bit early?’ she asked, standing in the doorway, wrapped in a towel. ‘What time is it?’
‘Five.’ Dixon was watching Monty pushing his bowl around the tiled floor. ‘I’ll give him a bit more later.’
‘Anything from Potter?’
‘She wants us over at Combe Hay as quick as we can. They’re going to pick Gregson up.’
‘I’d better throw some clothes on then.’
Dixon listened to the thump of Jane’s footsteps running up the stairs as he slid his phone out of his pocket and tapped out a text message to Dave Harding.
Any sign of Gregson or Steiner’s cars on the traffic cameras Tuesday morning near Catcott?
The reply came just as Jane appeared in the kitchen doorway, fully clothed this time.
None at all. Not in any direction. No Markhams vehicles either. Just the van on the speed camera at Woolavington
What about Hatty’s DNA in the van?
Clear. Just Alesha’s
Dixon sighed.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jane.
‘Nothing really,’ replied Dixon. ‘Just something that doesn’t seem to add up.’
They were driving east on the A368, Jane looking out at Blagdon and Chew Valley reservoirs, before either of them spoke again. He had been deep in thought long enough. ‘What doesn’t add up?’ she asked.
‘Eh?’
‘Back at the cottage, you said something didn’t add up.’
He nodded. ‘The van wasn’t seen in Catcott at all. How many statements were taken from the village?’
‘Over twenty.’
‘And not one of them saw the van the morning Hatty was taken.’
‘That doesn’t mean—’
‘And yet it was caught on the speed gun at Woolavington.’
‘You said you thought that was deliberate.’
‘I did.’ Dixon nodded. ‘And it could well have been, just to make us think it was in the area. And yet when we found it there was no trace whatsoever of Hatty’s DNA. Nothing. It hadn’t been cleaned either because Alesha’s DNA was in it. Which means Hatty was never in it.’
‘What about Gregson or Steiner?’
‘There’s no sign of them on any of the traffic cameras, in the vehicles we know about anyway, which makes me think about the mechanics of how she was snatched.’
‘And who by.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can you hear what I can hear?’ asked Jane, frowning as Dixon dropped down off the main road into the back of Combe Hay.
‘Sirens.’
An ambulance flashed by on the main road just as Dixon pulled up at the junction at the bottom of the hill. ‘I’m guessing it didn’t go according to plan.’
The farm track was blocked by a patrol car and a uniformed officer he didn’t recognise.
‘DCS Potter is on scene, Sir. She’s expecting you.’
‘What happened?’ asked Dixon, throwing his warrant card on to the dashboard.
‘They were dead when we went in.’
‘They?’
‘Mr Gregson and his wife, Sir.’ The officer winced. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’
‘Shift the car, will you?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
The Land Rover bounced along the farm track.
‘Who killed them?’ asked Jane.
‘Steiner. He’ll have come in on foot along the old Coal Canal.’ Dixon shook his head. ‘And all the time, we were watching the road.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘You never asked me if I was sure.’
Jane rolled her eyes.
Dixon squeezed past the patrol cars parked on the verge and parked behind Gregson’s Volvo. ‘You’d better move those two,’ he said to a uniformed officer leaning on the bonnet of one of the patrol cars. ‘Scientific’ll never get their vans through there.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Potter’s here,’ said Jane. ‘That’s her car.’
Dixon walked around the outside of the single storey barn conversion and peered in the French windows overlooking the garden and beyond that the walk down through the field to the canal. Potter was standing in the doorway on the far side of the living room surveying the scene, Superintendent Guthrie craning her neck to look at something on the floor that was upside down. Both were wearing latex overalls, overshoes and gloves.
Potter gestured to Dixon and Jane to stay where they were on the patio. ‘It’s like a bloody abattoir in there,’ she said, appearing around the corner. She let the picket gate slam behind her. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. They even killed the dog, would you believe it?’
Dixon grimaced. ‘They?’
‘Whoever did it.’
He gestured to the path down to the old canal. ‘Better get SOCO to look for footprints down there,’ he said, the long grass beyond the stile at the bottom of the garden recently flattened, by the looks of things.
‘Steiner?’
‘My guess is he came along the old canal. We’d have seen him if he’d come by road.’
Potter nodded. ‘How’s Hatty?’
‘She’ll be all right, Ma’am,’ said Jane. ‘She’s at Bath hospital being checked over.’
‘Well done, the pair of you, anyway.’ Potter smiled. ‘I’m recommending you for an award, Jane.’
‘Thank you, Ma’am.’
‘You too,’ she said, turning to Dixon, ‘And I may not give you any choice about that transfer.’
‘Let’s finish this first,’ muttered Dixon.
‘It is finished, surely?’ Potter frowned. ‘We’ve just got to catch Steiner and I’ve got every available—’
‘I’ll be inside,’ said Dixon, ripping open a packet of latex overalls as he walked around the corner of the house.
Potter looked at Jane and raised her eyebrows.
‘Don’t look at me, Ma’am. He never tells me anything.’
The front door was standing open, the lock intact. Gregson, or his wife perhaps, had let Steiner in. Dixon glanced around the hall, at the blood spattered up the walls, mainly on the left. Steiner was right handed, according to Petersen’s post mortem of Savage, and it looked like he’d struck the first blow from the doorstep, blood spattered across the coats hanging just inside the door.
He stepped over the blood trail in the hall and followed it along the corridor to the living room. Gregson must have crawled, trying to hide under the dining table, possibly; more blood on the floor and was that skull fragments? The dining table lying on its side against the drinks cabinet.
Blood was spattered up the back of the sofa too. Perhaps a few more blows had rained down on Gregson’s skull there, bef
ore he made one last effort to crawl away, his life ending on the rug in front of the sofa.
He was lying on his back, rolled over by Steiner probably, the wooden handle of a steak knife sticking out of his chest. Dead before he was stabbed, thought Dixon, judging by the lack of blood on the paper. That would be Petersen’s problem though.
‘Beaten, then stabbed to death,’ said Guthrie, watching Dixon peering at the body.
‘Beaten to death.’ Dixon straightened up. ‘The knife was inserted later to hold that document in place.’
Guthrie nodded.
Dixon craned his neck to look at the document pinned to Gregson’s chest by the steak knife, just as he’d seen Guthrie doing. A loan agreement, dated almost exactly two years ago. Dixon recognised the names.
‘Where’s his wife?’
‘Back bedroom.’
By the time he emerged from the living room the corridor had been covered in plastic to preserve any bloodstained footprints, and a Scientific Services officer was laying down stepping plates to the back bedroom. The kitchen door was open, so Dixon peered in. The elderly terrier was hanging out of his bed in the far corner, a large carving knife sticking out of his side and a small trickle of blood from his nose puddled up on the quarry tiled floor in front of him.
Dixon squatted down next to the dog’s bed and stroked him on the back of his head. Stone cold.
Poor old lad.
Henry, according to the tag on the collar. He flipped it over and looked at the name and phone number on the back.
Helen Gregson was lying face down on the double bed in the back bedroom, a small incision in her blouse evidence of the single stab wound that had killed her. Or had it? Dixon noticed a trickle of blood coming from each ear, running down her cheeks and dripping off the end of her nose on to the carpet.
Then he retraced his steps back to the living room, squatted down next to Gregson and looked at his ears. The same – possibly – although it was difficult to tell, what with the savagery of the beating.
‘Petersen’s here,’ said Jane. She had tiptoed along the stepping plates and was standing in the living room doorway.
‘All right, everybody out.’
Dixon recognised the senior Scientific Services officer’s voice. ‘Bit out of your area, aren’t you, Don?’ he asked, smiling.
‘It’s a Sunday,’ muttered Watson.
‘Tell me about it,’ said Dixon. ‘We’re still on holiday.’
‘You found the kid, I gather?’
‘Yes.’
‘About bloody time.’
Dixon smiled. ‘Get Petersen to check their ears, will you?’ he asked, heading for the front door.
‘Where are you off to?’ shouted Potter, wriggling into a set of white overalls in the car park.
‘Express Park, Ma’am,’ replied Dixon, throwing his car keys to Jane.
‘Where are you off to, Dave?’ asked Dixon, stopping in front of Harding on the stairs up to the Incident Room.
‘Home, Sir.’ Harding shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’ve found Hatty and the hunt’s on for Steiner. What else is there to do?’
‘Track this car last Tuesday,’ replied Dixon, handing him a piece of paper. ‘Mark in?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ Harding frowned. ‘Whose car is it?’
Dixon ran up the last couple of steps to find the Incident Room deserted, except for Louise and Mark.
‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.
‘They all went to the pub when the news came through, Sir,’ replied Louise.
‘Gits,’ muttered Pearce.
‘We’ll go to the pub when we’ve got Steiner,’ said Dixon. ‘In the meantime, Mark, track these mobile phone numbers last Tuesday, will you?’
‘Whose are they?’
‘I’ll be in the canteen.’
‘It’s closed, Sir.’
Dixon and Jane were sitting in the canteen, Dixon leaning back in his chair, eyes shut, Jane reading several documents that he had ripped out of the lever arch files in the Incident Room, when DCI Lewis walked in holding a mug of coffee in each hand.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘I got you these from the machine.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Jane, smiling.
‘All over bar the shouting, is it?’ Lewis pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down.
Jane shook her head. ‘We’re waiting for a phone trace and Dave’s tracking a car on the cameras.’
‘Whose?’
‘Dunno.’
‘So, how did Steiner get away?’
Dixon’s eyes opened and he sat bolt upright. ‘I’ll tell you how Steiner got away. Those fuckwits from Wiltshire didn’t check the moored boats properly and then . . .’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Then they let him see them skulking about in the bushes.’
‘That’s when he sank the boat,’ said Jane.
‘Deliberately?’
Dixon nodded. ‘Take the cratch cover off the rudder housing and stick it in reverse. The backwash floods it in seconds. We were supposed to trap him in the bottom lock, but he never got that far.’
‘He hijacked a car.’ Jane rolled her eyes. ‘Then they called off the chase on the edge of Chippenham. It was becoming a danger to the public.’
‘I’ve called off a chase in that situation before,’ said Lewis. ‘It happens.’
‘When you’re in pursuit of a child snatching multiple murderer?’ asked Dixon.
‘Maybe not, then, no.’
‘He even killed the bloody dog.’
‘He’ll turn up in a B&B somewhere, or sleeping in a tent in the woods. His face is all over the TV news. It’ll be in every newspaper in the morning too. And at least you got Hatty out unscathed.’
‘Jane did that.’
‘So I heard.’ Lewis smiled at Jane.
‘Looks like you were right, Sir.’ Dave Harding was standing in the doorway with Mark Pearce. ‘The car’s picked up on the A39 heading north east. It’s on the number plate recognition cameras in Glastonbury and Wells, then again on the A36 just south of Bradford-on-Avon, so it must’ve gone across country to get there.’
‘What time?’
‘Glastonbury’s first, just after nine.’
‘What about the phones, Mark?’
‘There’s not been time to triangulate, so it’s not going to be an accurate location. Vodafone have got back to me first, and it’s showing up on the base stations at Glastonbury and Wells, then again at Radstock; that’s a weaker signal, so I reckon they went along the B3139. Then again on the mast at Farleigh Hungerford. That’s on the A36, that one. Then it’s Bradford-on-Avon.’
‘Whose is it?’ asked Dixon. ‘His or hers?’
‘Hers.’
Chapter Forty-Three
‘Have you rung DCS Potter?’ asked Lewis. He was sitting in the back seat of Dixon’s Land Rover.
‘Yes, Sir,’ he replied. ‘She’s on her way back from Combe Hay and should be at Express Park by the time we get back.’
‘Good.’
‘D’you think they know what’s happened to the Gregsons?’ Harding had rung Louise, who had raced back to Express Park and jumped in Dixon’s Land Rover just as he was leaving.
‘No.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ asked Jane. She looked along Old School Lane and then back to Dixon.
‘Backup to get in position.’
The streetlights flickered, the wind blowing the branches of the trees all around them. They’ll be a fat lot of good in the summer when the trees are in leaf, thought Dixon, as he watched four figures creeping along the far end of Old School Lane. Then a flatbed lorry drove past the top end of the lane.
He checked his watch. ‘Right, let’s go.’
Dixon and Jane paused at the front door and watched Lewis and Louise creep along the side of the house, ready to take up position at the French windows. Then he knocked on the door.
‘Ah, the heroes of the hour,’ said Geraldine, stepping back to allow Dixon and Jane into the hall.
‘Not yet, Roger,’ replied Dixon. ‘How’s Hatty?’
‘The children team are interviewing her tomorrow, but they won’t get much. She can’t remember anything before she woke up on the boat.’
Dixon saw Ros Hicks sitting at the dining table in front of a glass of wine and a jigsaw puzzle, a second glass of wine in front of the empty chair next to her.
‘She’s going to be fine,’ said Jeremy, walking over to the drinks cabinet. ‘She got a clean bill of health from the consultant.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s asleep upstairs. Adele’s with her.’ Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. ‘She can’t bring herself to leave her on her own.’
‘Who can blame her,’ said Jane.
‘Nobody.’ Jeremy was waving a bottle of Scotch in his hand. ‘Drink?’
‘No, thank you, Sir. Better not,’ replied Dixon.
‘I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are, Inspector,’ said Jeremy. ‘Roger was right. You are—’
Dixon held up his hand, silencing Jeremy mid-sentence.
‘I should clarify that this isn’t a social call, Sir,’ said Dixon. He looked up at the sound of footsteps above to see Adele leaning over the balustrade.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
Geraldine sat down at the dining table next to Ros.
‘I regret to inform you, Mrs Renner,’ said Dixon, turning back to look up at Adele, ‘that Simon Gregson and his wife were both found dead this afternoon at their home in Combe Hay.’
‘Dead?’
‘Murdered, we believe by Steiner, sometime last night.’
Ros Hicks slumped forwards across the dining table, scattering jigsaw puzzle pieces on to the floor.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hicks.’ Dixon picked up several pieces of the puzzle and looked at them in the palm of his hand. ‘That’s no way to find out your son is dead, is it?’
‘Your son?’ Adele came running down the spiral stairs.
‘A canal boat?’ Dixon leaned over the puzzle, before dropping the pieces on to the table. ‘How apt,’ he said, matter of fact.
‘You took Hatty?’ screamed Adele. Poland ran forward, wrapping his arms around her.
Dixon stepped forward. ‘Rosalind Hicks, I am arresting you on suspicion of the abduction of Harriet Renner.’