by Damien Boyd
Dixon was brought back to the present by a dull thudding sound low down on the door, as if someone was standing with their back to it, kicking it with their heel. Louise opened it to let Jane in, a beer in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other. A tube of toothpaste and two brushes were sticking out of her pocket and the evidence bag was tucked under her arm.
‘Hi, Jane,’ said Janice. She made the introductions to Baxter and Porritt.
‘What was Carter’s motive?’ asked Dixon, smiling at Jane when she placed the beer on his bedside table.
‘The father was abusing his own son and he was Michael’s friend, so Michael put a stop to it,’ replied Janice.
Dixon nodded.
‘Who are we talking about?’ asked Baxter, looking quizzically at Porritt. She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Rick Wheaton,’ replied Dixon. ‘Every single previous attempt to get someone in undercover with the Carters fails until Hargreaves sends in Rick Wheaton. And he succeeds because he’s a lifelong friend of the family. Michael Carter was protecting him when he killed his father and Rick was repaying the debt.’
‘So, Rick Wheaton is The Vet?’
‘He is.’
‘A fucking police officer?’
‘It explains the reference on the bulletin board too,’ said Jane.
‘It does,’ said Dixon.
‘And none of this would’ve come up on background checks back then either,’ said Baxter, nodding. ‘Even without the change of name.’
Dixon passed round his phone with the photograph of Rick Wheaton holding hands with Angela outside the snooker club. ‘This is a still from the video footage, only it never appears in the corresponding photo album. You can see Wheaton and Angela are an item, and she admitted it when we saw her today.’
‘But he killed her husband,’ said Porritt.
‘She doesn’t know that.’ Jane took a sip of gin and tonic.
‘Yet,’ continued Dixon. ‘Anyway, when he disappeared, she moved to London. She tipped most of his stuff, but kept some of it in a box in the loft.’
‘Has she still got it?’ asked Baxter.
‘No,’ replied Dixon. ‘We have.’
Jane held up the evidence bag.
‘We’ve also got a statement confirming that these items belonged to Rick Wheaton and have not been touched since.’ Dixon smiled. ‘We’ve got the Polaroid camera, an electric shaver and a hairbrush.’
‘We need to get them off to the lab.’ Baxter stood up. ‘A match with a partial sample is better than nothing.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that, Sir. Can you get a DNA test done overnight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ Dixon took a swig of beer. ‘Then we can pick them up tomorrow.’
‘Them?’
‘The covert DNA sample is fake and it’s finally thrown up a match with an estate agent from Winchester. He had a few too many at lunch one day and drove home from work. The important bit, though, is that he used to live in Hale and was a season ticket holder at Old Trafford.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘He used to sit next to a copper, Sir,’ said Dixon. ‘Called Ray.’
Dixon set his alarm for 7 a.m. and left the ringer on in case DCS Baxter rang. He promised to do so as soon as the DNA result was available, whatever time it was. He had also agreed to delay the arrest of Hargreaves until the result was known. Better to take them together, Dixon had said, and Baxter had agreed.
Jane was fast asleep, which was hardly surprising given that she had spent over nine hours behind the wheel of her car. Still, it would be a nice mileage claim. At forty-two pence per mile, it might even be enough for a night in a posh hotel.
He opened the file on Michael Carter’s murder conviction and turned first to the post mortem report, which was much as he had expected. A single stab wound to the left side of the neck had opened up the jugular vein and then the fatal shot to the head, at point blank range judging by the powder residue. Dixon skipped over the post mortem photographs, but the pictures taken at the scene confirmed the exit wound must have been sizeable. Blood and brain had been plastered up the white walls in the hall. It must have made quite an impression on a twelve year old.
Michael Carter had been interviewed at length by the investigating officers, Detective Inspector Daniel Smith and Detective Constable Raymond Hargreaves. Dixon sighed. Nothing wrong with that in the ordinary course of events, but these were not ordinary events, by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe Hargreaves had felt some grudging admiration for Carter, not surprising perhaps when the evidence pointed to his victim having been a paedophile abusing his own son. But it was still a murder, and Hargreaves was still a police officer.
The police surgeon had been called to certify Carter fit for interview, which he was, and he had been interviewed in the presence of his own father, Samuel Carter. He freely admitted the killing, saying that he knew what was being done to his friend and had decided to stop it. It seemed to have been generally accepted that the gun was his father’s, but he denied that when asked in interview and refused to say where he had got it from.
When the front door opened, he opened fire immediately, hitting the man in the forehead, and then he stabbed him in the neck to make sure. Only then did he notice his twelve year old friend standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Psychiatric reports had been prepared, which were not on the file, and he had been sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Next stop borstal, followed by a transfer to Strangeways at the age of eighteen. He had finally been released in 1988 – soon to be reunited with his childhood friend.
Dixon slid his phone off the bedside table and sent Louise a text message.
Need another dna test dunkery beacon body and toby horan asap, lewis will expedite, ta
Chapter Thirty-One
‘You really shouldn’t be having that.’
‘Eh?’
‘Orange juice is packed with sugar.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
Jane sighed. ‘Go ahead then. See if I care.’
Dixon picked up the glass of orange juice and put it on the corner of his breakfast tray. Then he turned to the coffee machine.
‘DCI Lewis put the request for the DNA test in last night, Sir,’ said Louise. ‘So, we should get it back today.’ She was standing by the hot plate holding two pieces of bacon in a pair of tongs.
‘Thanks,’ replied Dixon.
Jane used the distraction to snatch the glass of orange juice from Dixon’s tray, down it in one, and then replace the empty glass.
Ten minutes later they had finished their cooked breakfasts, and Dixon was doing his best to ignore the empty orange juice glass when his phone buzzed. He smiled and held the phone out in front of him for Jane to read.
On way, good news
‘Who’s that from?’ she asked.
‘Baxter.’
‘Janice is about to make the biggest arrest of your career,’ muttered Jane.
‘It’s her investigation, and I’m dead, remember?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘That’s the deal. And it doesn’t really matter as long as we get the bastards.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I keep wondering what Horan was saying to Harry at the end.’
‘Maybe you’ll get a chance to ask him.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Dixon turned to Louise sitting at the next table. ‘Any news on the factory?’
‘Not yet. The engineers will be trying to make it safe. God knows how long that’ll take.’
‘Keep an eye on it, will you?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
He looked up to see Baxter and Porritt striding towards him across the restaurant.
‘It’s a match then?’ he asked.
‘As good as we’ll get from the partial sample.’
‘What was it?’
‘They found a hair follicle in the shaver. Blunt blades, so it must’ve pulled it out. There was n
othing on the hairbrush, oddly enough.’
Dixon nodded. ‘Hargreaves first,’ he said.
‘There are six of you and six of us, plus I’ve got a firearms team meeting us there.’
‘That should be enough.’
‘Perverting the course of justice hardly cuts it,’ said Jane, ‘bearing in mind what he’s conspired in.’
‘It’ll do for starters,’ replied Dixon, stepping back behind the bushes.
Joel Lane, Werneth Low, was outside the M60 and well on the way to the Peak District. Large gardens, with fields behind them, and trees – it was almost like being back at home. Even Hargreaves’s small bungalow had a tree in the front garden, although Dixon had no real idea what it was without leaves to give it away.
The gravel drive swept in, past the tree, to the front of a bungalow that was dwarfed by the double garage attached to it.
Dixon watched two firearms officers, the lead one holding a battering ram, creeping along the front of the garage. Behind them Janice and Louise were tiptoeing along with Baxter and Porritt, all of them wearing their regulation stab vests. Two more firearms officers, with Dave Harding and Mark Pearce in tow, were moving silently down the path at the side of the garage.
Dixon and Jane crept forwards and ducked down behind a Ford Mondeo with a Manchester United sticker in the back window.
‘What if he rings—?’ whispered Jane.
‘They won’t give him the chance. They’re going straight in. Front and back.’
Jane nodded and waited for the crash of the front door.
‘What about that bay window?’ asked Jane, peering through the windows of the car.
‘It’s the dining room,’ replied Dixon. ‘It’s empty.’
In front of the garage and a narrow path along the front of the bungalow had been block paved, presumably so the postman could get in and out without waking them up, but it meant the firearms team arrived at the porch unseen.
Dixon watched the hand gestures, counting down from three, and then the swing of the battering ram. There was a loud crash, immediately followed by two more coming from the back of the bungalow.
‘Armed police!’
‘Stay where you are. Armed police!’
The second shout came from the back. Maybe someone had been in the kitchen.
Dixon ducked down behind the car and listened to the sounds all around him. Birds in the trees, splintering wood, a siren in the distance, dogs barking, glass crunching underfoot, the drone of traffic out on the main road, a scream.
‘Armed police. Put down the—’
Then a gunshot.
‘He’s firing.’
‘Not at us, Jane,’ said Dixon, bowing his head. ‘Not at us.’
Two paramedics ran past and in the front door.
Seconds later Louise and Porritt appeared at the front door leading an elderly lady out of the bungalow. They were holding her up and waited while a patrol car swung into the drive. Then they helped her into the back.
‘He shot himself?’ asked Jane.
‘If you were his age, would you let them send you to prison?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Me neither.’
Dixon stepped over the broken glass in the hall and followed the corridor to an open door. He saw the television first, a huge screen mounted on the wall to the left of the fireplace. Sitting directly in front of it was retired Detective Chief Superintendent Ray Hargreaves, his head back, mouth open, the back of his skull and most of his brain splattered up the wall behind him.
A red football shirt covered in signatures and mounted in a display case on the wall had not escaped, the glass shattered by the bullet before it embedded itself in the plaster.
A small drawer in the desk next to Hargreaves was open, presumably where the gun had been hidden, ready for just such an eventuality. Now it was in his lap, still with his finger on the trigger.
‘What’s the score?’ asked Jane, glancing up at the television.
‘It’s just the highlights,’ replied a firearms officer. ‘It’s last night’s Premier League game. We won two–nil.’
‘Are you ready?’
Janice was pacing up and down in the bottom of the stairwell, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
‘Are you ready, Jan?’ asked Dixon.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll be fine.’
‘Here’s the list. Name them all in the open, in front of everyone. Leave them in doubt who he is. And start with my attempted murder.’ Dixon grinned. ‘Let him know I’m still alive.’
Silence.
‘All right?’
‘It’s just another arrest, Jan,’ said Jane. ‘You’ve done it hundreds of times before and you’ve got Armed Response right behind you.’
‘Yes, but this is The Vet we’re talking about.’
Dixon grinned. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’
Janice forced a smile, which soon disappeared when the double doors opened at the bottom of the stairs to reveal four firearms officers followed by Baxter and two more CCU officers in stab vests.
‘Everyone in position?’ asked Dixon.
‘We’ve got two officers in the lift, and the back stairs are sealed off. That just leaves the fire escape.’
‘We can cover that,’ said one of the firearms officers.
‘Everybody ready?’ asked Baxter.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s sitting at a workstation on the far side. We’ve got an officer at the coffee machine.’
‘Right, let’s get on with it,’ said Dixon.
Baxter spoke into his radio. ‘On three. One. Two. Three. Go.’ He pushed open the door and edged out into the CID area on the fourth floor of the Greater Manchester Police headquarters. The firearms officers fanned out on either side of him, the two on the right making for the fire exit. At the same time, the door on the far side of the CID area opened and two more firearms officers crept in, with Louise and another CCU officer behind them.
Dixon and Jane let the door close behind them and walked along the back wall of the open plan office.
‘He’s the one with his wrist in plaster,’ whispered Dixon from behind a wry smile. ‘Nice to know my old Land Rover made an impression.’
Janice and Baxter followed the two lead firearms officers across the office, weaving in and out of the workstations.
DI Manesh Pandey was the first to spot them coming. ‘What the—?’
‘Armed police! Stay where you are!’
Detective Chief Superintendent Warren Douglas spun round to find himself looking down the barrel of a machine pistol.
‘Hands!’
‘What the hell is going on?’ he snapped, standing up with his arms in the air.
Janice stepped forwards. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Warren Douglas,’ she said, her voice clear and loud. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of the attempted murder of Detective Inspector Nicholas Dixon.’
Douglas’s eyes darted around the room, finding Dixon and fixing him with a cold stare.
‘And the murders,’ continued Janice, ‘of Detective Sergeant Jonathan Sexton, Police Constable Brian Hocking, Derek John Hervey—’
‘You’re The Vet?’ screamed Pandey. ‘All this fucking time!’
He lunged at Douglas, but was restrained by two CCU officers.
‘Where’s Hargreaves?’ demanded Douglas, still glaring at Dixon.
‘He’s dead,’ muttered Baxter.
‘Lee Henry,’ continued Janice. ‘And Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Butler.’
Douglas glanced at the back stairs and then the fire exit to find them both blocked, before turning back to stare at Dixon. A CCU officer stepped forwards and handcuffed himself to Douglas’s good arm.
‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court.’
‘I know the words.’
‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
&n
bsp; Silence.
Dixon reached into his pocket, took out a ten pence piece and flicked it, sending it spinning into the air. The coin landed on the corner of a workstation, bounced on to the floor and rolled towards Douglas, falling on to its side and spinning to a standstill at his feet.
‘Heads or tails?’ muttered Dixon.
‘Fuck you.’
‘What wouldn’t you give to be in there now?’ asked Jane, smiling at Dixon.
‘I’ll settle for being a fly on the wall. And besides, Janice gets to do all the paperwork.’
They were perched on the edge of a table watching Douglas’s interview on a black and white monitor, the camera looking down on the scene from above. Janice and Baxter were sitting with their backs to it, Douglas sitting opposite them and next to his solicitor, Susan Allsopp. From time to time he glared up at the camera.
‘That’s for your benefit,’ said Jane.
It would be the first of many interviews, but it would set the tone for those that followed.
Douglas had been abused by his father from the age of seven. It started not long after his mother died of cancer and continued right through until Michael Carter had ended it on the night of his twelfth birthday, which that year happened to fall on Good Friday. Of course, Douglas knew the Carters and, yes, he should have disclosed that before he went undercover.
He could not explain why Hargreaves had faked Michael Carter’s DNA sample and denied any conspiracy with him. As for The Vet, he had always believed it was Michael Carter, although he had never been able to prove it. No one had.
‘Let’s talk about your own DNA then,’ said Baxter, leaning back in his chair. ‘The sample taken from you after your arrest is a match with the partial sample on the handcuffs used by The Vet. How do you explain that?’
‘You said it yourself: it’s a partial sample. That’s hardly conclusive.’ Douglas smirked.
‘It’s not a match, though, with the sample you gave in 2006 for police database elimination. Why is that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Every police officer goes on the database,’ said Baxter. ‘And you knew your DNA would match, so you faked your sample, didn’t you?’