by Bill Rogers
‘Yeah.’ Zachary Tobias put the water bottle to his lips, found there was only a drop left and put it back down on the floor.
‘How much do you earn, Mr Tobias?’ Max asked.
‘What’s this got to . . . ?’
‘Just answer the question, please,’ said Max.
For a moment it seemed that Tobias might refuse. Then he mopped his brow with the sodden handkerchief.
‘Eighteen grand,’ he said.
Max turned to look directly at him.
‘Does it have tinted windows?’
‘What?’
‘Tinted windows. Does your car have tinted windows?’
‘No, why? Should it?’
‘Are you married?’ Max asked, ramping up the courier’s confusion.
‘No.’
‘Girlfriend?
‘No.’
‘Boyfriend?’
The courier launched himself forward. His hands gripped the seats in front, just below the headrests. On the screen, the tension was evident in his face and the rope-like veins on either side of his neck.
‘What you sayin’?’ he hissed.
Max calmly turned to face him, and pointed at the dashcam screen.
‘Hands.’
He waited until Tobias had slumped back in his seat.
‘I’m not implying anything,’ he said. ‘I’m merely attempting to establish if you’re in a relationship with anyone. Are you?’
The courier shrugged.
‘No.’
‘So you live alone?’
‘No. I live in an HMO.’
‘A house of multiple occupancy.’
‘Yeah. There are six of us. We share the rent.’
‘All male?’
‘Yeah. So what?’
‘What do you do in the evenings, Zachary?’
‘Go down the gym.’
‘Every night?’
‘Yeah. Five mornin’s a week too.’
‘You never miss?’
‘No. I’m trainin’, innit?’
‘For?
‘UKBFF competitions, innit?’
‘BFF?’
‘United Kingdom Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation. I’m a regional winner. I’m training for the Nationals, yeah?’
‘What time do you finish?’
‘Gym closes eleven thirty pm. Then we go for something to eat.’
‘Every night?’
‘Yeah. Protein-loading, yeah?’
‘This gym. Do you have to sign in?’
‘Yeah. Fire regs, innit? Guy who runs the gym is hot on that, yeah?’
‘And is there CCTV in this gym?’
‘Outside, not inside.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Not in the gym. We’re not a freak show.’
It was a weak joke. Max wasn’t even sure that it was a joke. Wasn’t bodybuilding in any case a freak show?
‘What’s the address of the gym?’ he said.
Chapter 23
‘How is it at your end, DI Sarsfield?’
‘Fine,’ Sarsfield replied, ‘like you were right here with me.’
Ram turned to Jo. ‘We’re ready to go, Ma’am.’
They were seated in the BSU satellite incident room on the Quays, using the live video link, secure in the knowledge that all of their voice, video and file transfers were encrypted. Gerry Sarsfield was in the incident room at Central Park.
‘I take it that you’ve read the reports Max and I filed?’ Jo said.
Gerry Sarsfield leaned forward and nodded. His face filled the screen. ‘You’ve been busy, the two of you.’
‘Do you have any thoughts for us, Gerry?’ she said. ‘Or questions?’
‘Nathan Northcote,’ he said. ‘Given he could have used any one of the engineer codes to gain entry to student accommodation and even to their rooms, why would he go to the trouble of taking those girls off the street?’
‘I wondered that,’ Jo replied, ‘but then he more or less answered it for me. Every time a code is used it’s recorded by the keypad. He’d have been one of the first people we’d have looked at, together with his work colleagues.’
‘And when we checked the CCTV on the campus, it would have narrowed it down to him,’ Max pointed out.
‘Good point,’ said Sarsfield, leaving Jo to wonder which of their points he was referring to. ‘I’ve got another one,’ he continued. ‘How come his DBS report didn’t flag up his convictions?’
‘It was before the Disclosure and Barring Service took over,’ Jo told him. ‘The firm applied for a Basic CRB check – his conviction was considered spent by that time so it didn’t show up.’
Sarsfield raised his eyebrows.
‘I thought security firms were supposed to apply for a Standard or Advanced check? That would have included his spent conviction.’
‘They should have. Someone cocked up. It happens.’
‘Are you going to tell his firm about the non-disclosure?’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘I gave him twenty-four hours to tell them first.’
‘He’ll almost certainly lose his job.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but he shouldn’t have lied.’
‘Where do you want to go with Northcote?’ Sarsfield asked.
‘You’ll have read that his time sheet checks out for the night he was stopped?’ Jo said. ‘And according to the calendar on his phone, he had his kids staying over on all but one of the dates when those girls were abducted?’
‘Alibis have been known to lie. And one of them’s his ex-wife.’
‘Precisely,’ she said. ‘That’s why I want you to get one of your team to double-check with the wife, and another one to take a hard look at the mate he was supposedly with most of the night.’
‘No problem.’
‘And,’ she continued, ‘I’ve asked for an ANPR data mine in relation to his car and his work van. That’ll tell us if he was anywhere near the last known location of any of the other four victims.’
‘Good move,’ Sarsfield agreed.
‘Moving on,’ Jo said. ‘Zachary Tobias.’
‘He sounds an interesting character, Max,’ said Sarsfield. ‘I get the impression you’re thinking the same?’
‘I could tell from his reaction when I told him who I was that he had something to hide,’ said Max. ‘My hunch is that if he’s not our unsub, then it’s to do with the use of illegal bodybuilding and weight loss supplements.’
‘Using or dealing?’
‘Probably both. He’s mobile. He competes locally and nationally. His work takes him into places where there’s a predominant youth culture, and we all know lots of kids obsess about their body image.’
Sarsfield chuckled.
‘Kids? Sounds like you’ve got one foot in the grave. These are eighteen-plus adults you’re talking about.’
‘Like I said. Kids.’
‘Were those the only reasons he raised your suspicions? Because he’s mobile and evasive?’
‘No. It’s also because throughout our conversation he was restless. And thirsty. He drank an entire bottle of water while I was with him. And he was sweating.’
‘Must be hot, wearing tight-fitting leathers,’ Ram observed.
Max shook his head.
‘It was seven degrees Celsius. Even colder with the wind chill. His jacket was undone. I didn’t have the heater on in the car. Everything I’ve described is consistent with drug use. Something that speeds up the metabolism.’
‘Such as?’ said Andy.
‘Steroids, ephedra, high-dose caffeine, DNP.’
‘DNP?’ said Andy.
‘Dinitrophenol, also known as Solfo Black,’ Jo told him. ‘It’s highly toxic and has been known to cause fatalities.’
‘How come you know about it?’
‘Someone at the health club I go to left some in a locker overnight with his kit. Grant, one of the gym instructors, found it. He waited until the next session the guy attended was full then made everyone stop and gather round.
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‘“What did I tell you when you joined?” he said. “This is what I expect: a balanced diet, targeted exercise, and total commitment. No drugs, no supplements. It’s not negotiable!”
‘Then he pointed to the guy, held up the container of pills, rattled it and threw him out.’
‘Sounds like my kind of place,’ said Ram.
‘One more thing,’ said Max. ‘In my experience, most bodybuilders are overcompensating. And if Tobias is on steroids or any of these other supplements, he’ll almost certainly be suffering from erectile dysfunction.’
‘For all we know, our unsub is impotent,’ Jo pointed out. ‘In the absence of seminal fluid, anything is possible.’
‘All of the victims were raped,’ said Sarsfield. ‘There was penetration.’
‘But we don’t know with what,’ she reminded him. ‘Some of them suffered vaginal tears and there was spermicide present. All that means is that whatever was used was covered with a condom.’
‘Very careful, our unsub,’ Andy said.
‘Either way, we need his alibi checking out again,’ said Max.
‘That’s something else I’d like you to arrange, Gerry,’ said Jo. ‘If he’s in the clear over the girls, but it turns out he’s dealing, you can pass it on to the Drugs Squad.’
‘I’m on to it,’ he said. ‘And while we’re doing all this, what will you guys be doing?’
‘Professor Harrison Hill,’ she said. ‘Max and I will be paying him a little visit. Three allegations of improper behaviour and stalking, plus a midnight kerb crawl, puts him firmly on our radar.’
‘Ours too,’ said Sarsfield. ‘Whether or not he’s your man, Operation Talon will want a word.’
‘You’ll get your turn, Inspector,’ Jo told him.
‘Is that it then?’ he asked.
‘For now. I’ll update the shared online Policy File document. I assume you’ll do the same?’
His face filled the screen again.
‘Absolutely. It’s a bugger having to maintain the original one as well though, isn’t it?’
He was referring to the A4-bound book, with numbered pages in which all of the SIO’s major strategic and tactical decisions relating to the investigation were recorded.
‘I don’t have a choice,’ she said. ‘Any defence team is going to look for the tiniest hole in our procedures, even if it means putting a serial killer back on the streets. That’s the price we pay for protecting innocent members of the British public from unsafe convictions.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if the trade-off’s worth it,’ said Gerry Sarsfield.
Don’t we all? thought Jo. Until it’s one of us in the firing line.
Chapter 24
‘I apologise for the state of this room,’ said Harrison Hill. ‘As a Visiting Professor with only one semester in each of the universities, this is all they could manage, I’m afraid.’
Jo took in the surroundings. Given her experience of university staff accommodation, Hill had landed lucky. The book-lined study was at least as large as her lounge. Despite the massive desk and the coffee table, there was enough room for a seminar of at least six students. On the bookshelf directly opposite her and Max, a collection of Hill’s own books was ostentatiously displayed alongside a framed photograph of the author. The professor misread her expression.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘you should see the one they gave me back home. I could practically hold lectures in that one.’
He laughed, and with perfectly manicured fingernails flicked back from his forehead an artful curl of hair, and ran his hands over the thighs of his earth-toned chinos. Jo’s intention to give him the benefit of the doubt was rapidly eroding.
‘National Crime Agency,’ he said looking from one to the other of them in turn. ‘How exciting. What is that, some kind of FBI?’
‘Not quite,’ she replied, ‘but as analogies go, it’ll do.’
Both his smile and his tone were condescending.
‘That would normally be my cue to begin a deconstruction of your use of the word analogy,’ he said. ‘As opposed to simile, comparison or even metaphor. But I don’t suppose that you’re here for a lesson in semiotics?’
‘You suppose right, Mr Hill,’ said Max, deliberately denying him the use of his title. ‘We’d like to talk with you about a series of complaints made about you by three female students.’
The academic looked genuinely surprised. When he spoke, there was no trace of his confident, almost supercilious tone. He looked and sounded seriously flustered.
‘I’ve only just been apprised of those complaints,’ he said. ‘They’re subject to an internal enquiry. The universities involved are still trying to agree on how to proceed. It has nothing to do with the police.’
‘Actually, it has everything to do with us,’ Jo told him. ‘The complaints were first made to the police in response to a public appeal regarding a series of assaults on female students. You may have seen it?’
She saw the moment of recognition in his penetrating blue eyes.
‘I knew I’d seen you somewhere before,’ he said. ‘You were on the television. Talking about those girls, those dreadful rapes.’
The two of them let him fill the silence. He looked at Max and then at Jo, gripped the arms of his chair and shook his head violently.
‘No. No! You can’t seriously think I had anything to do with those heinous crimes? On the basis of what? A couple of misunderstandings blown up out of all proportion?’
‘Three,’ said Jo. ‘Three allegations from three students in three different universities, none of whom as far as we can tell were even aware of the existence of the other two.’
‘As far as you can tell?’ he said, attempting to sound scathing. ‘Have you checked all of their social media accounts? Have you even heard of six degrees of separation?’
‘I saw the film,’ said Max. ‘I wasn’t convinced.’
‘Mr Hill,’ said Jo. ‘We’re not here to investigate those three complaints. Colleagues from Greater Manchester Police will contact you shortly to give you an opportunity to respond to the allegations that have been made against you. Investigator Nailor and I are solely interested in seeing if we can eliminate you from an investigation into the abduction and serious assault of a number of other female students.’
He stared back at her.
‘Eliminate? Or implicate?’
‘That all depends on how you respond to our questions.’
He shook his head again.
‘This is ridiculous. I’m a married man. I have two young children.’
‘Neither of which facts, Mr Hill, of themselves form the basis of a defence,’ said Max.
‘Where are your wife and children?’ Jo asked.
‘Back home in the States. Why do you ask?’
She shrugged.
‘Just context.’
He moved to the edge of his seat, his posture combative.
‘I get it,’ he said. ‘You assume that because I’m over here on my own, I must be desperate for female companionship?’
‘The crimes that we’re investigating go way beyond companionship,’ said Jo. ‘And the only assumptions that I’ve now made are as follows: the fact that your wife is not here with you means that she’s unlikely to be able to confirm your whereabouts on the days and at the times in which we’re interested, and it also means that you’re more likely to be a free agent in the evenings and at night.’
He thought about what she had said, and eased himself back into his chair. She could tell that he had decided that the best way to get rid of them was to answer their questions.
‘Tell me what you want to know,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to hide and I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jo. ‘My colleague will now hand you a sheet of paper on which are printed dates and times of interest to us. I’d like you to tell us where you were at those particular times on those dates, and who you think might be able to confirm your whereabouts.�
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Hill took the A4 sheet from Max, tipped back in his chair, gave it a cursory read, sat up and tossed it down on the coffee table.
‘Twenty-two hundred hours through to two am in the morning?’ he said. ‘I guess I was tucked up in bed.’ He stared straight at Jo as he added, ‘Alone.’
‘I’m afraid that “guess” won’t do it, Mr Hill. We need to know for certain exactly where you were.’
For a moment she thought he was going to refuse to take it, but he relented.
‘I’ll need to consult my diary and my cell phone,’ he said.
‘Do you have them with you?’ she asked.
‘I do.’
He didn’t move. The two investigators waited patiently, as though they had read each other’s mind. Eventually he lost the battle of wills as they knew he would, got to his feet, and went over to the desk in the bay window. He opened a drawer, took out an A5 diary and placed it on the desk. Then he reached into the inner breast pocket of the tan corduroy jacket over the back of the chair and withdrew a mobile phone and a Mont Blanc pen. Finally, he pulled a notepad mounted on a silver and black slate bed towards him, and sat down at the desk with his back towards them.
Max stood up, went over to the shelf where Hill’s collection of titles was displayed and selected two of the books. The one he handed Jo was entitled Lion Hunting in Alaska. He sat down and began to leaf through the other one. Jo was surprised to discover from the foreword that there were mountain lions in Alaska, but that sightings were as rare as those of Bigfoot. The novel it transpired was about a disillusioned academic’s attempt to discover his true raison d’être by spending a winter alone in the frozen wilderness. One reviewer had described it as a tour de force. Jo turned to the final chapter and began to read. It took less than two minutes for her to arrive at a totally different conclusion. This was the kind of self-conscious, narcissistic navel-gazing that gave literary novels a bad name. Not a patch on Brooklyn by Colm Tóibin, the most recent one that she had read. More of a tour de farce, she decided. Max noticed her smile.
‘That good?’ he whispered.
She shook her head and mouthed, ‘That bad! Yours?’
He held it up so that she could see the title.
‘Same here, but very interesting.’