Heads or Tails (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 7)

by Damien Boyd

  Sexton rang the doorbell and waited. Dixon squatted down and pushed open the letter box.

  ‘Police. Open up,’ he shouted.

  Silence.

  ‘Over to you,’ he said, turning to the Armed Response team waiting behind him.

  ‘Armed police. Open this door,’ shouted the uniformed sergeant, stepping forward. He shook his head. ‘Ready, on three.’ He took the battering ram from the officer standing behind him. ‘One, two . . .’ The ‘three’ was lost in the crash of the battering ram hitting the door just above the lock. A second blow and the door swung open.

  Dixon stepped back and watched the armed officers run into the hall, the first following the corridor to the back, the second entering the open plan living room on the right. The third and fourth headed up the stairs.

  He counted four shouts of ‘clear’ before he had even stepped into the hall.

  ‘Let the other Armed Response team go,’ he said, turning to Sexton.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  A cursory glance at the photographs on the mantelpiece in the living room, and in the clip frames on the walls either side, told the story of a relationship breakdown; the photomontages cut with precision to remove an adult male, a tattooed arm around a small boy holding a carp the only trace of him. That left Anna, the children and the occasional grandparent; Anna’s mother and father no doubt. There would be photographs of Toby somewhere, unless the divorce had been so traumatic that they had been incinerated or shredded, all trace of him expunged from the former matrimonial home.

  Dixon felt the side of the kettle.

  ‘Somebody was here within the last half an hour.’

  ‘Is it warm?’ asked Sexton.

  ‘They had a cuppa,’ replied Dixon, gesturing towards the sink where a mug was lying on its side in the washing up bowl.

  He glanced back down the corridor where four uniformed officers were waiting just inside the front door.

  ‘Let’s get on with it then. You know what to look for.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And make sure you check the loft.’

  Toby Horan hadn’t been living at the property last October when the electoral roll had been updated, if that was to be believed, but it was still possible they might find something with his DNA on it. Better still something, or someone, who could give Dixon a forwarding address.

  A car horn sounded outside, followed by a door slamming and raised voices.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on? And what have you done to my front door?’

  ‘Mrs Turnbull, Sir,’ said the officer following a woman into the hall.

  She threw her handbag on the table. ‘It’s Ms!’

  ‘Ms Turnbull, Sir.’

  ‘You’d better have a warrant.’

  ‘Technically, we don’t need one, Ms Turnbull,’ said Dixon, with his best disarming smile. ‘But I got one anyway.’

  ‘Well you’ll be paying for that door.’ She snatched the piece of paper from his hand. ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Not what, who. We’re looking for your ex-husband.’

  ‘What’s he done now?’ she asked, sweeping her long dark hair back as she glanced down at the warrant.

  Dixon ignored the question.

  ‘D’you know where he is?’

  ‘No. I wish I did. Useless tosser. He signed over the house and then buggered off. Left me with the kids, not that I mind that, of course.’

  ‘D’you have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘No. My solicitor’s been trying to find him too. And the Child Support Agency.’

  Dixon followed her into the living room and watched her drop into an armchair.

  ‘Sam will be home from school soon,’ she said. ‘How long’s this gonna take?’

  ‘He has a bank account registered to this address?’

  ‘I send the statements back. Every single one. “Addressee gone away” scribbled all over them, but they still keep sending ’em.’

  ‘Do you read them?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ She lit a cigarette.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have a lot of money, does he?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘He’s got money.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘If I knew that, I’d tell my solicitor, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Who is your solicitor?’

  ‘Fiona Lees at Cobbetts in Bridgwater.’

  ‘Are you happy for us to talk to her?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘He has a mobile registered to this address?’

  Anna stood up and walked over to the sideboard. She opened the top drawer, took out a phone and threw it to Dixon. ‘Here. The battery’s dead.’

  He caught it and dropped it into an evidence bag held open for him by a uniformed officer.

  ‘Sam’s been playing with it.’

  ‘D’you need to go and get him?’

  ‘No, he gets a lift home with Kim, three doors down. I take them, she fetches them.’

  ‘Is Sam the fisherman?’ asked Dixon, pointing at the photomontage on the wall.

  ‘He used to go with his dad.’

  ‘Do you have a picture of Toby?’

  ‘I burnt them.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then we’ll take that one, if we may?’

  ‘He’s not in it.’

  ‘His arm is, and it gives us a partial of the tattoo on his left forearm.’

  ‘You must be really desperate to find him,’ replied Anna, with a wry smile. ‘Go ahead. Take it.’

  ‘We’ll leave the rest,’ said Dixon, turning to the uniformed officer standing behind him. ‘What about your daughter?’

  ‘Layla. She goes to a friend’s house after school usually.’

  ‘May I?’ asked Dixon, gesturing to the sofa.

  Anna shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘When did you meet Toby?’ Dixon sat down.

  ‘Sixteen years ago. Layla’s fifteen so . . .’

  ‘And how did you meet?’

  ‘At the Clarence. There was live music one night and we met at the bar.’

  ‘What did he do for a living?’

  ‘He was a pest controller. Always has been.’

  ‘Working for himself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old was he when you met?’

  ‘Thirty-six.’ Sharon stubbed her cigarette out in an already overflowing ashtray. ‘Do I need a solicitor present for this?’

  ‘No, you don’t, but you can have one if you wish,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Just get on with it.’

  ‘Does it pay well, rat catching?’

  ‘It’s all right. He worked long hours and he liked the freedom of working for himself. He’s not one for taking orders.’

  ‘Is he still working?’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘Did he like his job?’

  ‘That’s an odd question to ask about a pest controller.’

  ‘I’ve met one who hated killing things.’

  ‘He never had any problem with that,’ said Anna, smiling. ‘I used to say he liked it a bit too much.’

  ‘Did he have a computer?’

  ‘He took it with him.’

  ‘What about the books, accounts, customer lists, that sort of stuff?’

  ‘On the computer. He had a notebook too, but he always kept that with him.’

  ‘Who was his accountant?’

  ‘John Wheeler, in Burnham.’ Dixon turned round to check that Sexton was making notes.

  ‘Do the kids have computers?’

  ‘Yes. What’s this got to do with them?’

  ‘Are they in touch with their father?’

  ‘No. Look, this is getting out of—’

  ‘We’re going to have to take their computers, Anna. Yours too, but you will get them back. All right?’

  ‘You still haven’t said what Toby’s done.’

  ‘We’d also like to take, with your permission, a DNA sample from Sam
. Just a swab from inside his cheek. That’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’ll give us a familial match with his father,’ replied Dixon. ‘There’s no suggestion that Sam has done anything wrong at all.’

  ‘You still haven’t said what Toby’s done.’

  ‘Possibly nothing, Anna. It is OK to call you Anna?’

  She nodded.

  ‘But he’s wanted for questioning in connection with the deaths of two men.’

  ‘Murders?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Dixon, nodding.

  ‘He always said he’d . . .’ Her voice tailed off.

  ‘What, Anna?’

  She lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke out through her nose.

  ‘There was a national franchise outfit and they opened up in the area. Big advertising budget, national contracts. He lost the local hospital work, the council, Wessex Water, several garage chains. And all of it practically overnight.’

  ‘He went bust?’

  ‘He ceased trading, if that’s what you mean. He was just left with a bit of domestic work, old biddies and their wasps. So he started drinking instead. He’d always liked a few beers, but this was different. “Something to fill the day,” he used to say.’

  ‘And he always said he’d what?’

  ‘Kill them.’ She shook her head. ‘But I never thought he meant it, that he’d actually go through with it.’

  Dixon glanced at Sexton, who was standing behind the sofa scribbling in his notebook.

  ‘And that was the cause of the divorce?’

  ‘That was the start of it, I suppose, although we’d had some problems for a while.’

  Dixon waited.

  ‘He’d always been a bit . . . volatile. That was the word my mother used. She stopped coming here in the end. “Walking on egg shells” was another of her pearls of wisdom.’ Anna shook her head. ‘She’d be saying I told you so, if she was here now.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Dead.’ Matter of fact. ‘She never liked him. She thought he wasn’t good enough for her precious little daughter.’

  ‘What did you think?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘He was a good father, and it was good to begin with, I suppose. He had . . .’ Anna hesitated, ‘. . . issues.’

  Dixon raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Let’s just say things were fine while he was taking his pills,’ continued Anna, with a heavy sigh. ‘When he’d been drinking, he’d forget to take them, and all hell would break loose.’

  ‘Was he always taking medication?’

  ‘Not to begin with. It started after Sam was born, maybe a couple of years after. Manic depression, I think, but he never had a formal diagnosis.’

  ‘What about treatment?’

  ‘He refused to get any. Then the panic attacks started, and he got some Prozac off a mate of his.’

  ‘He didn’t go to the doctor?’

  ‘No. A friend of mine is a psychiatric nurse, and she said he might be bipolar, but I couldn’t get him to a doctor.’

  ‘What about medication?’

  ‘He was getting if off this mate. God knows where he was getting it from. Prozac usually, but sometimes it was diazepam. Whatever he could get his hands on, basically.’

  ‘Did he say why he wouldn’t go to a doctor?’

  ‘No, and he got nasty if I pushed it, so I thought, sod it.’

  ‘Nasty?’

  ‘It’s all in the divorce papers,’ said Anna. ‘And both times he put me in hospital. I had to get an injunction in the end to get him out of the bloody house. Things were pretty bad by then. He’d started on illegal drugs, as opposed to illegal prescription stuff.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I found some cocaine. Not much. Then when he hit Sam, that was the last straw.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A year or so ago.’ Anna was biting her lip. ‘Look are you gonna be much longer?’

  Dixon ignored the question. ‘What about his family? Did he have any brothers or sisters, parents still alive, perhaps?’

  ‘I need a drink.’ Anna stood up and walked over to the sideboard. Dixon watched her pour herself a large neat vodka.

  ‘Family, Anna?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Just us.’

  ‘What about a connection with Manchester?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ replied Anna, frowning. ‘That’s an odd question.’

  ‘Has he ever been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What football team did he support?’

  ‘He didn’t.’ She drank the vodka in one and then slammed the glass down on the top of the sideboard. ‘Look, he loves his kids, his booze and the precious bloody Coastguard. That’s it.’

  ‘He’s a Coastguard volunteer?’

  ‘He never answered a shout drunk. Never did that. Not in all the time I’ve known him anyway.’

  ‘When did he join?’

  ‘Just before we met. He was starting his training, I think.’

  ‘And he’s still a member?’

  ‘Yes. Loved it he did. It kept him going, really. And he never missed training. They were the only days he was sober. Never missed a single one.’ Anna sighed. ‘Couldn’t stay sober for us, but he could for his precious bloody Coastguard.’

  ‘D’you know why he joined?’

  ‘There were two girls down at the end of the jetty. They were cut off by the tide, clinging on to the flag pole down there, and he managed to get out to them and keep their heads above water until the Coastguard arrived. He got some award for it, I think. I’d read about it in the local rag. It was part of the attraction, to be honest. Local hero and all that.’

  ‘The current’s pretty strong down there,’ said Dixon.

  ‘They only just got to him in time.’ Anna smiled. ‘I remember he didn’t want all the fuss, though, seemed embarrassed by it. He even refused a TV interview.’

  ‘Did you keep any newspaper cuttings, anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you happy for us to take a swab from Sam then?’

  Anna nodded, releasing the tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘The silly fucking sod,’ she muttered.

  Dixon sat in his Land Rover watching through the front windows as the uniformed officers searched Anna’s living room. Lights on, curtains open, it seemed like the whole neighbourhood had come out to watch too. He slid his phone out of his pocket and sent Louise a text message.

  Did you get the names of the coastguard officers?

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘What’ve you got then?’

  ‘A photo of the tattoo on his left arm – a dragon, by the looks of things – and a detailed description from Anna Turnbull that matches what Simon Jones told us at the council,’ replied Dixon. ‘The passport office has got nothing and we’re waiting to hear from DVLA.’

  DCS Potter sat down on the corner of Dixon’s workstation at Express Park.

  ‘Social media?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Anna and the kids have Facebook accounts, but there are no photos.’

  ‘An e-fit then?’

  ‘They’re working on it now.’

  ‘What about DNA?’

  ‘A swab from the son.’

  ‘She was all right with that?’

  Dixon nodded. ‘We found some fishing tackle in the garage loft, but apart from that there was no trace of him at the house.’

  ‘What about his van?’

  ‘It’s a white Ford Transit.’

  ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘With “Westcountry Pest Services” written in green on both sides and on the back doors. There’s an 0800 number too, but it’s dead.’

  ‘He’s probably living in it,’ said Potter.

  ‘Anna gave us a list of known associates and friends. We’re checking them now. He was a Coastguard volunteer too.’

  ‘Coastguard?’

  ‘I’m waiting to hear if he was there when Harry drowned.’

  ‘Maybe
they know where he is?’

  ‘They just have pagers, sadly. Anna’s solicitor has been trying to find him for three months. She’s even had an enquiry agent after him.’

  ‘And they’ve got nothing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s he living on, I wonder?’ asked Potter.

  ‘Cash,’ replied Dixon. ‘All those cash in hand jobs.’

  ‘And there’s no phone number for him?’

  ‘We’re checking with the networks now, but he’s bound to be using an unregistered pay-as-you-go.’

  ‘Computer?’

  ‘We’re looking at the kids’ laptops, but he took his with him. High Tech have got his old iPhone too, but it’s at least two years since he used it.’

  ‘And David Cobb was the same killer?’

  ‘Definitely, according to Roger Poland.’

  ‘Good, well we’ve got enough to go public with the e-fit. Good work.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Vicky Thomas has scheduled a press conference for six o’clock. You want to sit in?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘We’ll put his face on every TV screen between here and Bristol,’ said Potter. ‘See if that flushes him out.’

  ‘How’d you get on?’

  ‘Can you flip it to the local news?’

  ‘What’s on?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Deborah Potter taking the credit.’ Dixon closed the back door of the cottage behind him. ‘D’you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, pl— Shit, he looks a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘Are they showing the e-fit?’ Dixon was shouting over the kettle.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that’s before you know what he’s been doing.’

  ‘Is he your prime suspect?’ asked Jane.

  ‘He’s our only suspect,’ replied Dixon, appearing in the doorway. ‘Have you fed Monty?’

  ‘I fed him when I got in. I thought he was with you.’

  ‘I dropped him off on the way to Burnham.’

  ‘To see the ex-wife?’

  ‘Very helpful she was too. Been looking for him for months.’

  ‘So, what’s it all about?’

  ‘Revenge. He’s going after the people who put him out of business. His competitor and some poor sod at the council.’

  ‘Who’s next?’

  ‘No one if we can find him first. We’ve got everyone and their dog out looking for him.’

  ‘Why the trephine and the—?’

  ‘No idea yet. We’ll find out when we catch up with him.’